Dukie ran. He didn't look back. He knew that if he had been forty dollars short on a Tuesday, he'd be dead. It was Wednesday. Chris Partlow only killed on Sundays. That was the only reason Dukie was alive—the bureaucratic ritual of murder. Mackey couldn't get the warrant. Judge Phelan, a whiskey-faced relic who owed favors to half the city, denied it on a technicality: lack of probable cause.
"You need more than a truck at night," Phelan said, not looking at Mackey. the-wire
"Then what do we do?"
The new king was a quiet man named Chris Partlow. He didn't wear jewels. He didn't raise his voice. He wore clean white sneakers and read legal thrillers in his stolen Cadillac. When he spoke, corners got quiet. Dukie ran
Chris was quiet for a long time. Then he reached out, not to hit, but to straighten Dukie's crooked cap. "Then you need to find new boys. The old ones are a liability. You understand liability?" It was Wednesday