Run: 2026-02-18-01KHQ94X4Z7KSMH578FXE9WRAB

Molly spread the crayon-drawn map across the hood of the car and smoothed out the wrinkles with her palm. The map had been confiscated from a seven-year-old named Declan, who had drawn it himself, which meant half of it was a dinosaur for no apparent reason. "The presents are stacked by the back fence," Molly said, tapping the dinosaur. "Or possibly here is where a dinosaur lives. Hard to say." Bill squinted at the map. "Why did we trust a child to be our inside man?" "Because adults ask questions, Bill. Declan asked for a juice box and called it even." Bill pulled his black beanie down over his ears even though it was seventy-two degrees outside. He believed strongly in the aesthetics of crime, regardless of the weather. "Walk me through the timeline again," he said. "Pin the tail on the donkey starts at two. That buys us four minutes of total chaos. Every child in that yard will be blindfolded and spinning." "What about the parents?" "Sandra's husband is running the music. He will be completely consumed by his Bluetooth speaker, which he does not understand and never will." Bill nodded slowly, absorbing this intelligence like a sponge absorbing something that made it deeply uncomfortable. A bounce house wheezed rhythmically in the distance. Children shrieked with the unhinged energy of small animals that had eaten only sugar since morning. "That bounce house is a liability," Bill said. "I accounted for the bounce house." "Did you account for the clown?" Molly paused. She looked at Bill. Bill looked back at her with the expression of a man who had just revealed the one variable that collapses the entire equation. "What clown, Bill." "There is a clown, Molly." "You are telling me this now." "I found out about the clown this morning. His name is apparently Zippo. He does balloon animals and has very fast hands." Molly rolled up the map and pressed it against her forehead. A child nearby fell off a tricycle and immediately stood up and fell off again. "Fast hands," she repeated quietly. "Professionally fast. He does a disappearing coin trick. I watched a video online." "We are planning to steal from a birthday party and you are concerned about a man named Zippo doing a coin trick." "I am simply saying he will notice things." Molly breathed in slowly through her nose and breathed out through her mouth the way her therapist had taught her, which her therapist had definitely not intended for this particular situation. "Here is what we do," she said. "You distract Zippo. Compliment the balloon animals. Ask him for a complicated one. Request a giraffe." "Why a giraffe?" "Because they are hard, Bill. Long neck. Lots of twisting. That buys me eight minutes minimum." Bill considered this with great seriousness and then nodded once. "I can do a giraffe," he said. "I know you can," said Molly.