Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCPKSS49J1FKCA39H3Z76WE

The van smelled of cold pizza and ambition. Bill had spread a hand-drawn map across the dashboard, weighted down at the corners with a stapler, a banana, and two shoes he was not currently wearing. "Right," he said. "Bouncy castle here. Piñata here. Presents on the trestle table, back garden, northwest corner." Molly squinted at the map. "Why is the piñata drawn so big?" "Because it's tactically significant." "It's a papier-mâché donkey." "It's a distraction with candy in it, Molly. That's a Trojan horse with better marketing." She took the map from him and turned it ninety degrees, which did not help. "What's this brown blob near the shed?" "Dog." "You didn't mention a dog." "I mentioned a blob." "Bill." "It's a Pomeranian," he said. "It weighs less than my left boot. I've weighed my boot." Molly rubbed her eyes. Eleven years she'd worked with him, and eight of those had featured some variety of small aggressive animal that Bill had described as "manageable." "Talk me through the timeline," she said. "Two o'clock, guests arrive. Two-fifteen, mayhem. Two-forty, cake. That's our window. Nobody watches presents during cake. Cake is the great equalizer." "And we get in how?" "Side gate. Then we're two ordinary adults at a children's party, and nobody questions an adult at a children's party as long as they look tired and slightly resentful." "That's the whole disguise? Looking tired?" "It's an emotional costume," Bill said. "It's very convincing on me." Molly checked the duffel bags in the back. Four of them, folded flat, lined with towels so the bows wouldn't crease. She'd insisted on the towels. There was no reason to be a barbarian about it. "One rule," she said. "Here we go." "We don't take the birthday kid's present. The big one. The one with his name on it." Bill stared at her. "That's the good one. That's the flagship." "I don't care." "Molly, that's a bike. I can see it from here, it's shaped like a bike, they've wrapped a bike, which is a fool's errand, and it is *ours*." "We don't take the bike." "Why not?" "Because," she said, "we're thieves, Bill, not monsters. There's a line." "Where? Where exactly is the line? Because it seems to move a lot, and it always moves in the direction of me not getting a bike." "The line," Molly said, "is between forty children who will forget which gift was theirs by Thursday, and one child who will remember, on his deathbed, the day someone stole his bicycle." Bill was quiet for a moment. He looked out at the house, at the balloons tied to the gatepost bobbing in the wind like small hopeful hostages. "That's actually quite affecting," he admitted. "Thank you." "I hate it." "I know." He folded the map, badly, and put his shoes back on. Somewhere beyond the fence a whistle blew, a hundred small voices went up like startled birds, and the Pomeranian began to scream. "Right," said Bill, checking his watch. "Two-fifteen. Mayhem, on schedule." Molly picked up the bags. "After you."