Run: 2026-03-09-01KKACDMRASF904G95N0TQPRQY

Molly spread the blueprint across the café table with the solemnity of a general invading Belgium, except the blueprint was a crayon map of a suburban semi-detached house and the café was a bakery that smelled aggressively of cinnamon. Bill leaned over it, squinting as if concentration might improve the artistic quality. The drawing showed a bouncy castle in the garden, a table labelled CAKE in enormous red capitals, and several circles with smiling faces that Molly had annotated as “minors, unpredictable.” “Children,” Bill said, tapping one of the circles. “You could just write children.” “I like to remember the threat profile,” Molly said. She nudged a sugar packet into the conservatory. “Entry point here. French doors. High traffic, low suspicion. Everyone thinks anyone carrying a gift bag belongs.” Bill looked up from the map and adjusted his cap. It was a burglar’s cap in the sense that he had once stolen it. “I’m still not fully comfortable robbing a birthday party.” “We are not robbing the party,” Molly said. “We are liberating presents before they’re sticky.” “That sounds like something a politician would say before selling a hospital.” Outside, rain dragged itself down the window. Inside, Molly’s eyes gleamed with the joy of logistics. She had changed into what she called suburban camouflage: a lilac cardigan, sensible shoes, and earrings shaped like tiny ducks. Bill, meanwhile, looked like a man trying to disguise himself as another, equally suspicious man. Molly pointed to the hallway. “Primary objective: the gift mountain. It’ll be near the stairs, somewhere visible but not supervised, because adults are idiots around balloons. We enter at fourteen hundred hours, during the magician.” Bill blinked. “There’s a magician?” “There’s always a magician. Or a woman with a rabbit and emotional fatigue. Same principle. While the children are being distracted by card tricks and latent disappointment, we sweep the gifts into bin bags and exit through the side gate.” Bill stirred his tea with a breadstick. “Bin bags seem a touch sinister.” “Fine. Reusable totes. We’re criminals, not litterbugs.” A waitress walked past and glanced at the crayon floor plan. Bill casually put a muffin on top of the bouncy castle. Molly waited until the waitress was gone, then slid the muffin aside. “What about the parents?” Bill asked. “You ever tried getting past six middle-class mothers between prosecco rounds? They can smell weakness.” Molly smiled. “That’s why you’re going in as entertainment support.” Bill’s face fell into an expression of profound personal betrayal. “No.” “Yes.” “No costume.” “It’s not a costume. It’s a mascot.” “That’s worse. A costume lies. A mascot commits.” Molly reached into her tote and produced a laminated flyer. On it, a giant cartoon lion grinned with the dead-eyed friendliness of something designed by committee. PARTY PALS PRESENTS LEO THE FUN LION. Bill stared at it. “You want me to be mauled by toddlers for access to a stack of wrapping paper?” “I want you to occupy them. You’re tall, you can wave, and frankly you already move like a man trapped in upholstery.” Bill leaned back, wounded. “I have grace.” “You once fell over a fence no one was chasing you across.” “That fence was aggressive.” She ignored him and set two jelly beans on the map near the kitchen. “Complication: the dog. Every household with bunting has one spaniel with boundary issues. So we bring sausages.” Bill nodded slowly. “Now that part I understand.” The bakery door opened and a gust of wet air came in carrying the shriek of a child from the street. Both thieves instinctively flinched. Molly lowered her voice. “Listen carefully. We’re not taking anything opened, anything handmade, or anything that obviously contains educational value. We have standards.” Bill considered this. “What about noisy plastic toys?” “Especially those. Society will thank us.” He sipped his tea and looked once more at the map, at the gift pile, the garden, the battlefield of juice boxes and cake frosting waiting beyond respectability. Then he sighed the sigh of a man who knew his life had gone wrong in several highly specific ways. “All right,” he said. “But if I’m wearing the lion head, you’re carrying the karaoke machine.” Molly folded the blueprint with a crisp snap. “Deal. And Bill?” “What?” “If a child asks whether you’re really a lion, don’t overact this time. Roaring only encourages them.” Bill shuddered. “Understood. We go in smiling, leave with the loot, and avoid face paint at all costs.” “Exactly,” said Molly, standing. “A clean job. In and out before they sing.” Bill tossed coins onto the table. “You know,” he said as they headed for the door, “there was a time I imagined crime would feel more glamorous.” Molly opened her umbrella like a conspiratorial flourish. “It will,” she said. “The moment we fence a battery-powered unicorn.”