The basement of Molly's apartment smelled like stale pizza and ambition, which was fitting since both were present in abundance. She'd covered an entire wall with photographs, yarn strings connecting them like a conspiracy theorist's fever dream. At the center sat a glossy eight-by-ten of a suburban house with balloons tied to the mailbox. Bill squinted at the surveillance photos through his reading glasses, which he'd stolen from a CVS three years ago and considered his most prized possession. He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "So let me get this straight. We're robbing a seven-year-old's birthday party." "We're not robbing the seven-year-old, Bill. We're robbing the presents intended for the seven-year-old. There's a moral distinction." "Is there though?" Molly tapped the photograph with a wooden pointer she'd acquired from an estate sale. The pointer had belonged to a retired geography teacher, and she felt it lent her an air of authority during planning sessions. Bill had never mentioned that it made her look absolutely unhinged. "The Hendersons are loaded. We're talking orthodontist money, Bill. Their kid asked for a pony. A real one." Bill leaned back in his folding chair, which creaked ominously under his weight. He'd been meaning to lay off the drive-through breakfast sandwiches, but criminal masterminds needed sustenance. He studied the layout Molly had sketched on a napkin, trying to make sense of her hieroglyphic handwriting. "Walk me through the entry point again." "The bounce house. We go in through the bounce house." "We're gonna bounce our way into a heist?" "It's the perfect cover. Everyone expects adults to look ridiculous in a bounce house. We blend right in with the chaos." She wasn't wrong, Bill admitted to himself. He'd seen parents at these things. They were shells of human beings, dead behind the eyes, willing to accept almost anything as normal if it meant the screaming would stop for five minutes. He picked up a cupcake from the plate Molly had set out for their planning session and peeled back the wrapper contemplatively. "What about the clown?" Molly's expression darkened. She hadn't accounted for the clown. According to her intelligence, the Hendersons had hired a performer named Sprinkles McGee, who operated out of a van with suspicious rust spots and a five-star Yelp rating. Clowns were wild cards. Unpredictable. They operated outside the normal rules of society. "We neutralize the clown." "Neutralize how exactly?" "I haven't worked that part out yet." Bill finished his cupcake and brushed the crumbs from his black turtleneck. He always wore a black turtleneck during planning sessions. It helped him think like a criminal, even though his therapist had suggested the real crime was his inability to commit to anything, including his marriage, his career, and apparently his cholesterol medication. The afternoon sun slanted through the basement window, casting dramatic shadows across Molly's wall of evidence. Somewhere upstairs, her cat knocked something over. Neither of them flinched. They were professionals.