Run: 2026-07-01-01KWE9HBTXDCJFT2VRBF714Q0S

The back room of Bill's apartment smelled like stale coffee and desperation, which Molly figured was appropriate given the plan currently spread across the table like a crime scene. "A kid's birthday party," Molly said, not for the first time. "You want us to rob a kid's birthday party." "Not the kid," Bill said, jabbing a finger at his crude drawing of a house that looked more like a lopsided potato. "The presents. There's a difference." "Is there?" "Molly. Molly, listen to me. This isn't some rando's kid. This is Bradley Fenwick's kid. You know who Bradley Fenwick is." "The guy who owns half the marina?" "The guy who owns half the marina. You think a man like that throws a birthday party with a clown and a bouncy castle? No. He throws a birthday party with a Rolex for a seven-year-old. With gift cards that have more zeroes than my last three jobs combined." Molly crossed her arms. "So we're stealing birthday money from a seven-year-old." "We're stealing birthday money from Bradley Fenwick. The kid's just collateral damage." "That's a terrible thing to say." "I know, I heard it as I was saying it, and yet here we are." Bill tapped the drawing again. "Look. Party starts at two. Ends at five. There's a two-hour window where every present that kid gets is sitting on a table in the backyard, completely unguarded, while forty drunk parents pretend to enjoy a magician." "How do we get past security?" "Costumes." "What kind of costumes?" "Clown costumes." Molly stared at him. "You want us to dress as clowns and rob a clown-themed birthday party." "It's not clown-themed, I just think clowns are a good disguise." "For a children's party. Where there is already going to be a real clown." Bill paused. "...Two clowns isn't that weird." "Bill." "Kids love clowns! Nobody questions a clown! We walk in, we juggle a little, we compliment the cake, we walk out with a sack full of stolen gift cards, everybody wins." "Except the kid." "Except the kid, yes, obviously, that's the whole point of the heist, Molly, keep up." Molly rubbed her temples. "And if the real clown notices there's suddenly two extra clowns at this party?" "We tell him we're with the second act." "There's a second act?" "There is now." She sat down slowly, dragging a chair across the linoleum with a screech that made Bill wince. "This is, hands down, the stupidest plan you've ever pitched me." "Worse than the yacht?" "Different kind of stupid than the yacht." "So you're in." "I hate that I'm in." Bill grinned and slid a red rubber nose across the table toward her. "Welcome aboard, Ms. Chuckles." Molly picked it up, turned it over in her fingers, and sighed the sigh of a woman who had made several bad decisions in her life and was about to make one more. "If we get arrested wearing clown costumes, I'm blaming you specifically. By name. To the judge." "Fair," Bill said. "Very fair."