Molly lounged on her leather armchair, a cigar held precariously between her lips as she puffed out a fat, grey smoke ring. She drummed her fingers on the armrest, her knuckles as white as bone under her tanning cream. "So..." she began, fixing Bill with a stare that could boil the soul, "blueprints yet?" Bill shuffled into the room, a crumpled design schematic in hand. He slid it across the desk between them, trying not to tremble. "Yes, ma'am," he whispered, adjusting his black-rimmed glasses. "Dwight decided to expand his backyard for his kid's party." Molly took a long drag on her cigar, eyeing the paper suspiciously. "And why is that important?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Because that's where all the presents are stored," Bill said, eyes darting to the other end of the room. Molly chortled. "Classics never cease to amaze me," she said, chuckling. She pointed to a large area marked "PIE" on the map. "This must be the presents. Very well. How should we handle it?" Bill unfolded a piece of paper, scribbling with a pen. "I... well..." he began, taking a deep breath. "I've got it all planned out, Anna. We... uh..." "My assistants aren't nearly as inept as you," Molly said with a wave of her hand. "Sorry, sorry," Bill said, slapping his forehead with his palm. "Well, it's simple, really. All we need to do is get into the garden through this hidden door in the pool house, then cut through this chain-link fence around the storage shed." Molly stared at the map for another long moment before she said, still chuckling: "Cut through? Uh-huh. And you've got the cutters. I'm sure. Let's see 'em." Bill shrugged out from his jacket, revealing a scatter of pouches on his chest and belt. He pulled out a seax, waving it in the air. "Yes, this should do the trick just fine," he said, wiggling the blade. Molly raised an eyebrow. "Dark Ages? Or just an inability to adapt to the modern era of crime?" "It's... it's irreplaceable," Bill protested, clinging to the blade. "It was passed down from my father, and he from his father!" "So you didn't decide to steal it yourself when you were ten," Molly said with a sigh. "Plenty of exposition there, I'm sure." She burst a fresh smoke ring from her lips. "Now, in the box under your chair, you should find a plasma cutter. Merry Christmas." As Bill went to find the cutter, Molly stood and began pacing the room. "Merry Christmas indeed. Funny story, this whole origin one. Wasn't too long ago when ex-cons couldn't get jobs." Bill looked up, watching her silently. She dropped a pile of books from her arm onto the desk with a heavy clatter. "I had to go back to college to make ends meet, myself. Lots of sociopathy. Then one day I thought, why not merge the two fields?" Bill couldn't quite follow where she was going with this; his eyes were fixed on the books, dusty and marked up with highlighted text and red ink. "I think I'm better off just picking locks," he muttered. "Don't get flustered, kid," Molly hissed, throwing a wink his way. "Never hurt to branch out. Speaking of which... maybe we should add this to the plan." She shot to the other end of the room and began rifling through a drawer. "What are you doing?" Bill called into the darkness, his voice quavering. Giving a dramatic flourish, she brought a shotgun into the light. "Insurance," Molly said simply, turning it over in her hands. "Now let's add another line to the list here, shall we?" she said with a laugh. "And don't be a baby when it's time." * * * Quickly and efficiently, Molly and Bill gathered their tools and equipment to begin the long trek to Dwight's house in the suburbs. They traveled in silence most of the way, down long corridors of gray roads and into quiet, winding streets of silent homes. The moon showed a ghostly face over black rooftops as they came up to their destination, and caught Duke waving wildly from the top of a construction crane before disappearing. Approaching the home, Molly sighed a long, heaving puff. It smelled just like any other neighborhood house, a blend of turpentine and whatever power lines smelled like. Hers was ranker with cigarettes and gasoline. "Are you ready?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. With another shake, a trickle of beads came from his forehead. "I..." "No time to fumble," Molly said, pushing past him and down a walkway. "I've got another job in the morning, and I want to bring you along, if ya catch what I'm throwing. Come on, it's just like practice." The plan unfolded in many devious ways and an equal amount of violence. By morning, the toybox was almost at capacity with plastic, cardboard, and paper that smelled like cinnamon. Boxes of sparkling sparklers had exploded and dogs were barking and the flour-blanketed front lawn was speckled with underinflated balloons. "Got 'em all, you think?" Molly asked over the din of frantic music. "It looks like it, yes," Bill said, his cheeks dimpled with sweat. "Are you gonna start the fire?" "People will show for that," Molly said, leaning on her knees. "If they discover anything, we'll be in mad hot water." She gave a hollow pop to her knuckles and pulled out a familiar box, taking a deep long drag. She glanced up at window, where children sat pleasantly in the fire safety house, peering out without much interest. "I hope they get something they like," Bill said quietly, closing up the steal container in their hidden SUV. "At lease Dwight and his son can open Christmas pretty early." Molly aimed the cigar for the house one last time, cloaking her eyes in smoke. "And if they don't, well... it's Christmas, for Pete's sake." * * *