More about Faith in Baltimore. [link]

It seemed like the whole bar brightened up once Faith walked back in. Even the Butterface from the fingerprint lab had some color in her cheeks while watching the vampire slayer hold court. Faith put her half-full glass of Jack-and-Coke on the old-fashioned wooden bar so hard that her drink sloshed in the glass. “I’m making my way across the country before I go professional,” she told an eager rookie who still probably polished his badge.

Jimmy watched and then came closer. He raised his eyebrows. “No offense,” he asked, and he looked her over in that way Bunk knew his partner thought was sexy. “ But a professional what?”

Her smile was full of promise as she said “What if I told you I’m a superhero?” She drained her glass as if there were nothing but a little water in it.

“Bullshit,” Jimmy replied, but he looked Faith over. “Is there a cape?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Why I asked…” McNulty said. “You have to admit…your arrival here’s a little dramatic.”

“It’s true, Jimmy. You should see what this girl can do with a piece of wood.” Bunk replied.

“I’ll bet.”

“I’ll answer any question…if you beat me at arm-wrestling.”

Oh, dear. Poor Jimmy has no idea what he's in for.

He's not happy till he's working somebody's nerves, but no, he doesn't.Somebody he worked under described him as "addicted to himself," because he's got good brains, but missed out on the opportunities he might have deserved to get a shot at(At which he deserved to get a shot?...well, you can see we haven't got that in common. ) In case you don't know what Jimmy looks like: [link]

In a flash that gave Bunk déjà vu, he takes Jimmy outside again. “You don’t have to do this, Jimmy.” “Like hell, I don’t.” his partner argued. “You didn’t have to bet against me!” “ With three to one odds, and inside information? What the hell would you do?” Even though it did seem unseemly not to back his friend up(and he sort of hated himself for the gleam he got in his eye at all the green piled up on the bar, but this Christmas had been an expensive one, and the debt had followed him into Spring. “I like to think I would…” Something flashed in McNulty’s eye, but then he shrugged. “Probably that, but you’re a punk for making me admit it.” “And after I was so gentle deflowering you as a murder police.” Bunk paused. “No offense, but this isn’t a typical barfly."

Jimmy McNulty had won bets, off and on, by picking out the biggest lunkhead in any drinking establishment, or, at first, out on the basketball court and arm-wrestling them. He was good at it because it wasn’t a matter of size, but more about leverage or centrifugal force or some other scientific principle that he couldn’t say when his mouth was slick with liquor.

He even liked the way her hand felt in his. “Just make me look good and I’ll take it easy on you.” Faith’s eyes glinted. “You just keep telling yourself that!”

She was so fast that the only reason he noticed he was getting pinned was the commotion of the bar patrons. “I could take this easier on you,” she said, her breath against his ear. “I understand guys your age don’t like it when you finish up too fast.”

He had her off-balance, just for an instant, but it felt pretty sweet, even if the smell of her sweat and some old-fashioned perfume(White Shoulders?) was kind of distracting. “I wouldn’t know.”

A duel of innuendos at not-very-many paces. A well-rehearsed dance for both of them, I'd imagine.

But the element of surprise is going to be a bear. (Let's hope not literally.)

Heh, thought you'd like that. And it's fairly in character...they've both done their share of "get some. get gone," although the few times McNulty gets treated like that by the woman, he doesn't take to it.

Faith hesitated., possibly because some brunette across the bar wanted to get her attention.Jimmy wondered how she could be the one that had the Smalltimore moment, when she was from Boston or somewhere. But it shouldn’t have bothered him because that hesitation, combined with superior upper-body strength gave Jimmy an advantage. Which he was at least minimum-happy to exploit, although he couldn’t decide which part was sadder: how much the bad-ass murder police needed a personal win(breaking up with Elena was hard on his sense of manliness) or how much he enjoyed touching this stranger when he couldn’t even blame being half in the bag for it.

Jesus, Jimmy, he scolded himself, why not just tell the whole bar how much you miss the boys? A few times, though, he’d done that very thing, but the bar had been less crowded and the other separated and divorced guys, as well as the one shellshocked widower who seemed too young to look as though he walked in the wrong room all day, every day, would probably just act as though they all shared the same awful dream. Whatever any of them said, it was hard to imagine bringing it up in front of someone else, even for mocking purposes. It was sort of the dirty, bourbon-soaked version of the way he felt coming out of church when he was twelve. Wasn’t like God was ever going to clap him on the shoulder and say “Let Me know if you need anything,” either, was he? But he still, sometimes felt cleansed by doing it, if only from a good vomit after a greasy breakfast. Jimmy smiled thinking of meeting old Father McCaffrey and hitting him with that personal gem. He wasn’t sure if that or Jimmy’s riff on the plural of pussy would finish the stodgy cleric first; he was definitely making his own fun, these days.

The pile of greenbacks McNulty collected, though gratifying, was a little lighter than his mental math. Faith’s eyes sparkled, and Jimmy thought it was more than maybe liking to be bested. “ Did you take my money?” Jimmy asked.

“What? Would you like to frisk me now?”It felt strange to be with a woman and know you were both thinking of you taking her standing up against the wall. Don’t get it wrong, he loved cutting through the bullshit, but it made him feel as though he skipped some very important steps. “You know I’m trying to get across the country for my destiny, right?”

I am really, really enjoying this. Who knew I would be into extended verbal (and not-so-verbal) sparring as ... mood setting.