Postmark: San Diego. By now, Valchek has gotten wise enough to open the envelope wearing latex gloves, and pull out the Polaroid within. "You cocksuckers," he grumbles. He picks up a magnifying glass to make out a smudge on a sign for the San Diego Port Authority in the corner of the photo. He then covers the print with dust and lifts it onto a strip of tape. As he's proudly regarding his handiwork (no pun intended), Kima knocks and enters to tell Valchek that they're about to start doing some hand-to-hands around the port: "Lieutenant Daniels said I should see you about a surveillance van." Valchek squints at her, and then quickly lies that the van is on loan to the Southwest district. Yeah, the Southwest district where Southwestern cuisine comes from. Kima nods and takes off. Valchek puts his glasses on again and studies the photo, trying to remember which Poles he can leverage in California.
College. Stringer is in his Econ class, carefully taking notes about supply and demand. The bell rings, and Prof. Lucas sets out a pile of the students' research papers, handing Stringer's directly to him with a compliment. Stringer smiles at his A-, and follows Lucas to ask if he has five minutes to answer a question: "What are the options when you got an inferior product in an aggressive marketplace?" Lucas says that "if you have a large share of the market, you can buy up the competition." Stringer asks what if you don't, and the prof says you can reduce your price to increase your market share. "That assumes low overhead," says Stringer, looking at Lucas from under his brow. Lucas says that otherwise, you operate at a loss: "And worse, as your prices drop, your product eventually loses consumer credibility." Lucas adds that the new CEO of WorldCom faced the problem Stringer's describing, given the company's involvement with the largest fraud case in history: "So he proposed--" "To change the name," concludes Stringer. "Exactly," says Lucas. So long, Death Grip. Hello, KFC!













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