At the live-action cartoon that is the Baltimore Sun plot, Stephen Jay Blairglass...excuse me, "Scott Templeton" is getting his clip file together for a metro position at the Washington Post. They're publishing short fiction pieces now? I had no idea. Alma points out that the word on the street is Burrell is going to get fired today; since this news is not about Templeton, he immediately loses interest, telling Alma, "Wish me luck." Good luck, jackass -- hope you fail! While Templeton slinks off, Alma goes over to Gus's desk to relate her red-hot Burrell rumor; he tells her to work a story out of it. But what about Twigg? Alma wonders. Busy cleaning out his desk, there, lady -- probably not the best time to throw a story assignment his way. "Work it as best you can," Gus says. "You are now my new senior cop reporter." So says St. Gus of the Printing Press, so shall it be done.

At a desk somewhere deep within the bowels of the Baltimore P.D., a desk jockey is looking up stats on unclaimed bodies -- thirteen, in case you're curious -- per the request of Templeton's moral and spiritual equivalent, James McNulty. McNulty asks the desk jockey to keep searching -- this time, for bodies with no fixed address. Ostensibly, this is to see where dead homeless people are turning up, but really, it's just a chance for McNulty to get more data to fuel his fictionalized serial killer scheme. "Dropping like flies in the Southern lately," McNulty muses, while dialing up Freamon on his cell. We learn that most of the bodies in South Baltimore seem to be popping up at night. "So who do we know working 12 to 8 in the Southern?" McNulty asks Freamon. "Jimmy, am I missing something here?" the desk jockey asks, once McNulty concludes his conspiratorial phone call. "How does this help you?" McNulty just grins. You don't want to know, friend. Seriously -- it would only annoy you.