The Wire, Season 3

Burrell:
What makes you think they'll promote the wrong man?

Daniels:
We do it all the time.

Shamrock:
Yo. Chair ain't recognized your ass.

Slim Charles:
But what if they don't cop our re-up, though?

Stringer:
Well, I'ma worry about that when it happen. Until then, Mr. Charles, we're going to handle this shit like businessmen, sell the shit, make the profit and later for that gangsta bullshit. [Poot raises his hand.] Yeah.

Poot:
Do the chair know we gonna look like some punk-ass bitches out there?

Stringer:
Motherf***er, I will punk your ass for sayin such shit!

Shamrock:
Yo, String, Poot did have the floor, man.

Stringer:
Shut the f*** up, this nigga too ignorant to have the f***in' floor!

Prez:
If that idiot worked for us, he'd be a deputy commissioner by now.

Herc:
[cuing up the theme from "Shaft"] Carv. He's a complicated man, and the only one that understands him is his woman.

Carver:
Seek therapy.

Herc:
Anybody I want?

Carver:
Anybody.

Herc:
I want more than one. I want the Olsen Twins.

Carver:
You got 'em. Slaves. All they live for is to get you off. But so now who are you gonna do for 'em? One guy, one act, one time.

Herc:
Right, and the minute I name a guy, you're gonna be like, "I knew you're a cocksucker from the first time I laid eyes on you. Steve McQueen? Huh, that's your fantasy? You f***ing closet case motherf***er."

Carver:
Steve McQueen?

Herc:
F*** you. It's a setup.

Carver:
Both Olson twins. Ashley. Kate...

Herc:
Mary-Kate. And yeah, I admire her body of work.

Carver:
They're yours. All you gotta do is name a guy.

Herc:
I'm not catching, I'm pitching.

Carver:
No problem.

Valchek:
So, what's my role in your little drama?

Carcetti:
I thought you might broker a meeting, you know... help your fearless leader see the light about his new friend on the council.

Valchek:
And I should tell him, what? Make nice or invest heavily in petroleum jelly?

Carcetti:
Hey, his ass, his choice.

Colvin:
Somewhere back in the beginning of time, this district had itself a civic dilemma of epic proportions. The city council had just passed a law that forbade alcoholic consumption in public areas; on the streets and on the corners. But the corner is, it was and it always will be the poorman's lounge. It's where a man wants to be on a hot summer's night. It's cheaper than a bar. Catch a nice breeze and watch the girls go on by. But the law is the law so what are the western cops gonna do? They arrest every dude for tipping back a High Life, there'd be no time for any other kind of police work. And if they look the other way, they open themselves up to all kinds of flaunting, all kinds of disrespect. Now, this is before my time but somewhere back in the 50's or the 60's, there was a moment of goddamn genius by some nameless smokehound who comes out the Cut-Rate one day and on his way to the corner he slips that just bought pint of elderberry into a paper bag. A great moment of civic compromise. That small wrinkled ass paper bag allowed the corner boys to have their drink in peace and gave us permission to go and do police work. The kind of police work that's actually worth the effort, that's actually worth taking a bullet for. Dozerman got shot last night buying three vials. Three. There has never been a paper bag for drugs. Until now.

Burrell:
If the Gods are f***ing you, you find a way to f*** them back. It's Baltimore, gentlemen; the Gods will not save you.

Stringer:
That's good. That's like a forty degree day. Ain't nobody got nuttin to say about a forty degree day. Fifty? Bring a smile to your face. Sixty? Shit, niggas are damn near barbecuing that mothaf***a. Go down to twenty? Niggas get they bitch on. Get they blood complainin... but forty? Nobody give a FUCK about forty. Nobody remember forty, and ya'll niggas is giving me way too many forty degree days. What the f***?!

Kima:
[to McNulty] How come they know you're police when they hook up with you. And they know you're police when they move in. And they know you're police when they decide to start a family with you. And all that shit is just fine until one day it ain't no more. One day, it's 'You should have a regular job.' and 'You need to be home at five o'clock'.

McNulty:
"You need to stop f***ing waitresses."

Landsman:
[to Bunk] Rawls and Foerster have crawled up my backside and they're gonna stay there until you find Dozerman's gun. Now, I would like it very much if I could unclench my ample ass cheeks, if you don't mind, and rid myself of that discomfort.

Bunk:
[types in "Peanut" in database] 89? And that's just the ones with Westside addresses.

Vernon:
Man, you got to narrow that shit down. Find some way to work with all them "Peanuts."

Bunk:
Motherf***er, do I look like George Washington Carver?

Lester:
From the looks of things, Stringer Bell's worse than a drug dealer.

Prez:
He's a developer.

Bubbles:
This pay how much?

Kima:
Let's treat it like a real job. Say $5 an hour, $30 on a day, max.

Bubbles:
That's less than minimum wage.

McNulty:
But there's no withholding, Bubs. It's tax-free.

Cutty:
Game done changed.

Slim Charles:
Game's the same, just got more fierce.

McNulty:
[to Stringer] I had such f***in' hopes for us.

Proposition Joe:
For a cold-ass crew of gangstaz, y'all carried it like Republicans and shit.

Stringer:
Yo. Motherf***er, what is that?

Shamrock:
Robert Rules say we got to have minutes for the meeting, right? These the minutes.

Stringer:
Nigga, is you taking notes on a criminal f***ing conspiracy? [Grabs notepad from Shamrock] What the f*** is you thinking? [Tears out minutes and crumples them]

Colvin:
Middle management means that you got just enough responsibility to listen when people talk, but not so much you can't tell anybody to go f*** themselves.

Colvin:
I swear to God, I have over 200 sworn personnel and I will free them all up to brutalize every one of you they can. If you're on a corner in my district, it will not be just a humble or a loitering charge. It will be some Biblical shit that happens to you on the way into that jail wagon. You understand? We will not be playing by any rules that you recognize.

Avon:
[to Stringer] I ain't no suit-wearin' businessman like you. You know, I'm just a gangster, I suppose. And I want my corners.

Dealer:
[while being thrown in the police truck] Hey, we in America!

Officer Santangelo:
Nuh-uh, West Baltimore.

Omar:
Shoot, the way y'all looking at things, ain't no victim to even speak on.

Bunk:
Bullshit, boy. No victim? I just came from Tosha's people, remember? All this death, you don't think it ripples out? You don't even know what the f*** I'm talking about. I was a few years ahead of you at Edmondson, but I know you remember the neighborhood, how it was. We had some bad boys, for real. Wasn't about guns so much as knowing what to do with your hands. Those boys could really rack. My father had me on the straight, but like any young man, I wanted to be hard too, so I'd turn up at all the house parties where the tough boys hung. Shit, they knew I wasn't one of them. Them hard cases would come up to me and say, "Go home, schoolboy, you don't belong here." Didn't realize at the time what they were doing for me. As rough as that neighborhood could be, we had us a community. Nobody, no victim, who didn't matter. And now all we got is bodies, and predatory motherf***ers like you. And out where that girl fell, I saw kids acting like Omar, calling you by name, glorifying your ass. Makes me sick, motherf***er, how far we done fell.

Butchie:
Conscience do cost.

Herc:
It's like one of those nature shows. You mess with the environment, some species get f***ed out of their habitat.

Carver:
Did you just use the word 'habitat' in a sentence?

Herc:
I did.

Daniels:
Detective McNulty,... when the cuffs go on Stringer you need to find a new home. You're done in this unit.

Clay:
[to Stringer] Crawl, walk, and then run.

Avon:
You know the difference between me and you? I bleed red and you bleed green. I look at you these days, String, you know what I see? I see a man without a country. Not hard enough for this right here and maybe, just maybe, not smart enough for them out there.

Runner:
Yo, I just rolled for peanut butter. You got anything else?

Colicchio:
The f*** I look like, Chef Boyardee?

Runner:
Who?

Rawls:
Amazing. Crime is down and no one wants to take any credit. What is wrong with this picture?

Lester:
Tell me something, Jimmy. How exactly do you think it all ends?

McNulty:
What do you mean?

Lester:
A parade? A gold watch? A shining Jimmy-McNulty-day moment, when you bring in a case sooooo sweet everybody gets together and says, "Aw, shit! He was right all along. Should've listened to the man." The job will not save you, Jimmy. It won't make you whole, it won't fill your ass up.

McNulty:
I dunno, a good case-

Lester:
Ends. They all end. The handcuffs go click and it's over. The next morning, it's just you in your room with yourself.

McNulty:
Until the next case.

Lester:
Boooooy, you need something else outside of this here.

McNulty:
Like what, dollhouse miniatures?

Lester:
Hey, hey, hey, a life. A life, Jimmy. You know what that is? It's the shit that happens while you're waiting for moments that never come.

Avon:
[to Stringer] Sunday truce been there as long as the game itself ..... I mean, you can do some shit and be like what the f***, but hey, never on no Sunday.

McNulty:
We're good at this Lester. In this town, we're as good as it gets.

Lester:
Natural police.

McNulty:
F*** yes. Natural police.

...

McNulty:
You know something, Lester? I do believe there aren't five swinging dicks in the entire department who can do what we do.

Colvin:
What I'm sayin' is, come tomorrow, if I don't have a shooter in bracelets, the Hamsterdam thing is over, finished. It's back to the corners for all of us and f*** y'all any way we can. You hear me? It was good while it lasted. For y'all it was cash on the barrel and no one needs no bail money. For me, I had clean corners damn near everywhere I looked. But that's all gone tomorrow unless y'all bring me my shooter.

Avon:
[after Brianna confronts him about D'Angelo's suspicious suicide in prison] The f*** you even thinking? That I had something to do with it? That I could do that to my own kin? Is that what you think? The f*** is in your head Brie? I ain't do nothing to Dee. I ain't have shit to do with it.

Brianna:
To do with what?

Proposition Joe:
[to Stringer] The feeling is it ain't right for you to be at the head of our table, when you can't call off your dog. Call it a crisis of leadership.

Stringer:
Make this quick, I got a meet.

Fatface Rick:
Oh, f*** your meet! You're harder to get at than my fat wife's cunt.

Stringer:
You know, Avon, you gotta think about what we got in this game for, man. Huh? Was it the rep? Was it so our names could ring out on some f***ing ghetto streetcorner, man? Naw, man. There's games beyond the f***ing game.

Rawls:
Bunny, you cocksucker, I got to give it to you, a brilliant idea. Insane and illegal, but stone f***in' brilliant nonetheless. After all my puttin' my foot up people's asses to get the numbers down, he comes along and in one stroke, gets a 14 f***in' percent decrease. F***in' shame it's gonna end our careers, but still.

McNulty:
I feel like I don't even belong to any world that even f***ing matters.

Kima:
'Cause you're a cop?

McNulty:
Nah, it's not just that. It's like, I went to meet her once; she was in a hotel room on the top floor. I punched the button on the elevator and it doesn't even go there. You gotta have some kind of special key to even get to that special f***ing floor. So I go to the front desk, some sneering f*** calls upstairs, gives me permission to go and get laid. I listen to the shit she talks about and it's the first time in my life I feel like a f***ing doormat. Like anyone else with any smarts would do something else with his life, you know? Earn money, or ... get elected. Like I'm just a breathing machine for my f***ing dick. I'm serious; I'm the smartest asshole in three districts and she looks at me like I'm some stupid f*** playing some stupid game for stupid penny-ante stakes. She f***ing looks through me, Kima.

Stringer:
We ain't gotta dream no more, man.

Levy:
[to Stringer] A guy says if you pay him, he can make it rain. You pay him. If and when it rains, he takes the credit. If and when it doesn't, he comes up with reasons for you to pay more. Clay Davis rainmade you ...... It's an old game in this town, and Clay Davis? That goniff was born with his hand in someone's pocket.

Slim Charles:
[when Stringer asks him to kill Clay Davis] Shit, murder ain't no thing, but this here is some assassination shit!

Brother Mouzone:
[to Avon, leading Avon to give up Stringer] What got you here is your word and your reputation. With that alone, you've still got an open line to New York. Without it, you're done.

[Omar and Brother Mouzone have trapped Stringer]

Stringer:
I ain't strapped. I ain't involved, yo. I ain't involved in none of that gangster bullshit.

[Both gunmen are silent, Stringer is breathing hard from running]

Stringer:
What y'all n*ggers want, man? Huh? Money?

[Silence]

Stringer:
IS THAT IT? Cause if it is, I can be a better friend to y'all alive.

Omar:
You still don't get it, do you? This ain't about your money, bro. Your boy gave you up. That's right. And we ain't had to torture his ass neither!

[Stringer is silent, realizing both men have come for retribution]

Stringer:
[ruefully] Well it seem like... I can't say nuttin' to change y'all minds.

[long silence]

Stringer:
Well, get on with it, motherfu...

[Omar and Mouzone shoot him to death]

Slim Charles:
Don't matter who did what to who at this point. Fact is, we went to war and now there ain't no goin' back. I mean, shit, it's what war is, you know? Once you in it, you in it. If it's a lie, then we fight on that lie. But we gotta fight.

Witness:
I saw only the one of them. He was black, big I thought. With a large weapon.

Bunk:
BNBG.

Vernon:
[laughing] Big Negro, Big Gun.

McNulty:
[standing over Stringer's body, talking to Bunk] I caught him, Bunk. On the wire. I caught him. He doesn't f***in' know it.

Squeak:
You've got to be the stupidest motherf***er I've ever dated.

Bernard:
[to crony] I can't wait to go to jail.

Sapper:
Yo, Omar, this right here, is a Barksdale joint.

Omar:
[nonchalant] Do tell!

Slim Charles:
Man, that's him right there in the G35, man.

Cutty:
Wearing it retro.

Sapper:
That shit is tight!

Slim Charles:
For $130, it better be.

Sapper:
Hell yeah! I'mma get me one of those motherfuckers!

Gerard:
(snort) You must be going to get that Muggsy Bogues, then. Your Mini-Me ass gonna be swimmin' in that Unseld.

Slim Charles:
As usual, man, y'all fools are missing my point. That boy came up short on that money last week, and y'all see he out here grinding. So where that money at?

Cutty:
You need to look beyond what he drivin' or wearing on his back. That boy got a girlfriend?

Gerard:
He run with this little freak up at the high school.

Cutty:
She wearing ice?

Gerard:
She wearing an onion. (high-fives Sapper) That's about all I can remember!

Sapper:
(laughing) Hell yeah.

Cutty:
Yo, check out the girl. High school girl with platinum around her neck? Only one place it came from.

Slim Charles:
Give my man his thing.

[Sapper hands Cutty a pistol]

Slim Charles:
Sig Sauer. That ain't no Lorcin, dawg.

Cutty:
I'm used to revolvers, man. .38 don't jam.

Slim Charles:
Don't hold 15, neither.

Cutty:
...The game done changed.

Slim Charles:
Game the same, just got more fierce.

Avon:
How'd it go?

Slim Charles:
We got one out of two of the motherfuckers, y'know?

Avon:
You mean you motherfuckers come strollin' in here, all walking tall and shit-

Slim Charles:
Yo, B. I'm saying man, we was blazing on them dudes, you know what I'm sayin'? Just got in the heat, man. We was blazing, though, it was like-

Avon:
Alright, alright, relax, man. I already heard, go sit down. I'm not tweaking behind none of this - that's one less motherfucker that's breathing than there was yesterday, you know what I'm sayin'? So we all good. [to Cutty] But I'm surprised at you though, man. Shit didn't get by you, back when.

Slim Charles:
Wasn't my man's fault, man. I unloaded on the young'un too soon, gave him enough room to buck and run, man. I fucked up that shit up myself, y'know-

Cutty:
Hold on... it's on me. I had that kid in my sights, close enough to take off his Kangol and half his dome with it... couldn't squeeze the trigger. Couldn't do it, man.

Avon:
Hmm. Why not?

Cutty:
...Wasn't in me, I guess. You know, whatever it is in you, that lets you flow like you flowing? Do that thang? It ain't in me no more.

Avon:
...A'ight. So you done soldiering, but you ain't done; could use you for what you got in your head. We gonna put you on a corner, you could be inside-

Cutty:
No, man. I ain't making myself clear... the game ain't in me no more. None of it.

[beat]

Avon:
But you ain't done shit else, y'know what I'm saying? So what you gonna do?

Cutty:
I don't know. But it can't be this.

Avon:
...A'ight, then. We straight.

[Avon and Slim Charles hug him. Cutty leaves]

Slim Charles:
B, he was a man in his time, you know?

Avon:
Yeah... he a man today. He a man.

Brianna Barksdale:
[On McNulty telling Donette about D'Angelo's possible murder] Why go to her? Why not go to me first?

McNulty:
Honestly? I was looking for someone who cared about the kid.

Colvin:
This drug thing, this ain't police work. I mean, I can send any fool with a badge and a gun to a corner to jack a crew and grab vials. But policing? I mean you call something a war, and pretty soon everyone is going to be running around acting like warriors. They gonna be running around on a damn crusade, storming corners, racking up body counts. And when you at war, you need a fucking enemy. And pretty soon, damn near everybody on every corner is your fucking enemy. And soon, the neighborhood you're supposed to be policing, that's just occupied territory. You follow this?

Carver:
Think so.

Colvin:
Okay The point I'm making is this: Soldiering and policing, they ain't the same thing. And before we went and took the wrong turn and start up with these war games, the cop walked a beat, and he learned that post. And if there were things that happened on that post, where there be a rape, a robbery, or a shooting, he had people out there helping him, feeding him information. But every time I came to you, my DEU sergeant, for information, to find out what's going on out on them streets... all that came back was some bullshit. You had your stats, your arrests, your seizures, but don't none of that amount to shit when it comes to protecting the neighborhood, now do it? [sighs] You know, he worst thing about this, so-called drug war, to my mind...it just, it ruined this job.

Stringer:
Where Avon at?

Slim Charles:
He'll be along shortly.

Stringer:
That's good, 'cuz I came to see you anyway.

Slim Charles:
What'chu need?

Stringer:
...I need you to hit somebody.

Slim Charles:
Who we hittin'?

Stringer:
Clay Davis.

Slim Charles:
The Clay Davis? Downtown Clay Davis?

Stringer:
That supposed to mean somethin' to me, man? That nigga need to be got.

Slim Charles:
Shit, String, murder ain't no thing... but this here is some assassination shit, man!

Stringer:
Listen, I tell you you gettin' somebody, you gettin' them. I ain't askin'!

Slim Charles:
Damn, String, I don't know-

Stringer:
Nigga, I gotta remind you who the fuck you work for?!

Avon:
Ayo. I think Slim gon' have to sit this one out, boss. So you finna go hit a state senator now, huh? Yo, you kill a downtown nigga like that, the whole world gon' stand up and take notice. I'm talkin' about the state police, federals, all of that! You need a Day of the Jackal-type mothafucka, basically, to do some shit like that, not a rumble-tumble nigga like Slim.

Stringer:
That nigga took our money, man.

Avon:
I seen it comin'.

Stringer:
Well, heh... he gotta go.

Avon:
Nah, you a fuckin' businessman! You wanna handle it like that, you don't wanna get all gangsta wild and shit with it, right? What'd I tell you about playin' them fuckin' away games? Yeah. They saw your ghetto ass comin' from miles away, nigga. You got a fuckin' beef with them?! That shit is on you!

Avon:
You look healthy.

Brother Mouzone:
For a man who was gutshot. You reached out to a third party, who engaged me in the purpose of holding your towers. That third person's word was your word, as he represented you.

Avon:
That's right.

Brother Mouzone:
And I ran those east Baltimore gentlemen off. I held up my end of the agreement... at least, for as long as I as physically able.

Avon:
You did.

Brother Mouzone:
Your man then set up a meet at Butchie's bar. Your man told Omar Little that I was responsible for the torture of a young boy who was close to Mr. Little's heart. Your man, in effect, sought to have me hit.

Avon:
Omar told you that and you believe that motherfucker?

Brother Mouzone:
He doesn't strike me as a man who tells stories - even at the point of dying.

Avon:
[muttering] Shit... Proposition Joe, package-

Brother Mouzone:
The inner workings of your organization don't concern me.

Avon:
If there's a way- I mean, if my man... if he made a mistake here, then I'm willing to pay the cost.

[pause]

Avon:
How can we fix it? You want money?

Brother Mouzone:
Money?

Avon:
Yeah. This is business.

Brother Mouzone:
Business is where you are now, but what got you here is your word and your reputation. With that alone, you've still got an open line to New York. Without it? You're done.

[Pearlman and McNulty are interrogating Bodie.]

McNulty:
You heard the tapes.

Bodie:
Look, he came to me and said we can sell drugs if we moved down to Vincent Street. And that's where I moved my crew. And you know I did! Because you the one that popped me with a G-pack on my way to the spot and let me go, remember?

Pearlman:
You were selling drugs in Major Colvin's free zone? You can prove that?

Bodie:
[motioning to McNulty] Ask him, he know... Man, this-this must be one of them contrapment things!

Pearlman:
You mean "entrapment"?

McNulty:
[amused and impressed] Kid's gotta point...

Bunk:
All night you been drinkin' like your ass is candy.