Run: 2026-07-01-01KWE9W7S341475K5CTQZGXH7E

The back room of Bill's Pawn & Loan smelled like mothballs and bad decisions. Molly sat on an overturned crate, sharpening a butter knife for reasons Bill chose not to question. "A birthday party," Bill said, for the third time. "You want to rob a birthday party." "Not rob. Liberate. There's a difference." "Enlighten me." "Robbing implies I feel bad about it." Bill dropped into his chair, which groaned in solidarity with his life choices. "Molly, these are presents for a seven-year-old. Barbies. Legos. Maybe a hamster if the kid's lucky." "Do you know what a first-edition Silverback the Gorilla plush goes for on the collector's market? Four hundred dollars, Bill. Four hundred." "How do you even know that?" "I have a guy." "You have a guy for everything." "I have a guy for stuffed animals, yes. His name is Desmond. He's very sad about it." Bill rubbed his temples like he could physically massage the headache out. "So the plan is we just—what—walk into some six-year-old's birthday party dressed as clowns and grab the loot?" "First of all, seven-year-old. Second, clowns are amateur hour. Clowns get remembered. We go in as caterers." "We don't cater." "We deliver a cake. One cake. We set it down, we case the present table, we come back during the piñata chaos and grab everything." "Piñata chaos." "It's a known phenomenon, Bill. Every kid in a three-mile radius loses their mind the second that thing cracks open. Parents are filming, dodging candy shrapnel, nobody's watching a folding table covered in wrapping paper." "And the cake?" "Store-bought. I'm not baking for this. I have priorities." Bill stared at her. "You want to steal from children, but drawing the line at baking." "Homemade cake takes four hours. Theft takes four minutes. Efficiency, Bill." "This isn't efficiency, this is a felony with balloons." "Every felony has balloons if you're doing it right." Bill picked up the invitation Molly had somehow acquired — glittery, cartoon dinosaur, the words HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY ROCCO practically screaming with joy — and turned it over in his hands like it might explain itself. "Rocco," he said flatly. "Rocco. Loaded family. Uncle's some tech guy. You should see the gift list I intercepted. There's an Xbox in there, Bill. A kid getting an Xbox for his seventh birthday and he doesn't even understand marginal utility." "You're justifying grand theft using economics vocabulary." "I contain multitudes." Bill set the invitation down, exhaled long and slow, the exhale of a man who had made peace with several bad decisions already this year and apparently had room for one more. "Fine. But I'm not wearing the little chef hat." "The hat is non-negotiable, Bill." "The hat is ridiculous." "The hat says *trustworthy caterer*, not *man about to steal a seven-year-old's Xbox*. Wear the hat."