McNulty's alone at the Major Case headquarters -- apparently, he's annoyed everyone into leaving the room with his bleating about Stringer Bell -- when suddenly he gets an idea. He goes and grabs a box marked "Barksdale" -- conveniently located next to one labeled "Port Investigation," by the by -- and spills out the files all over the table. Just going to the show page and reading all the recaps assembled there would have been a lot less messy. "What the hell is all this?" Massey asks when she wanders into the room. "You don't look at what you did before, you do the same shit all over," McNulty says. True enough. Like for instance, I don't recognize any of the people in the photos McNulty's staring at so intently, certainly not D'Angelo Barksdale...maybe I should go scan the recaps. See y'all in a couple of hours.

Okay, I'm back, and while I was gone, Cutty started getting a painful lesson about how much things have changed since he was last out of prison. Fruit explains to him that the police came through and grabbed a bag full of drugs and -- darn the luck! -- the bag they happened to grab was Cutty's. So there will be no money. Cutty finds this turn of events a little too convenient and notes that, in the old days, "when a player tried to say he lost a package to the police, he had to give up a number for the report." "Well, we ain't back in the day," Fruit says. And to illustrate the point, he pulls a gun on Cutty, who beats a hasty retreat. So I guess that partnership is dissolved. A shame too -- they could have been another Sears-Roebuck for the gangland set.

All this time, Colvin has been driving through the district, watching the crowds gathered on the corners with equal parts attentiveness, weariness, and dread. For the most part, when he slows down, they scatter. But not at one corner: a particularly dopey-looking young man sidles up to the car and proudly says that he's got spider bags. A disbelieving Colvin asks the knucklehead if he wouldn't mind repeating that. "Spider bags, two will get you three," the young man repeats. Colvin turns up his radio -- his police radio. The young man does not get the hint. Finally, Colvin puts on his police hat -- the young man's associates think this is hilarious. Colvin seems to think it's more sad than funny. I'm inclined to agree with both.