Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCQQNMSGGESFPSKW81421RM

Molly smoothed a napkin across the sticky café table and drew a lopsided rectangle with a stolen pen. "Bouncy castle. Cake table. Presents, stacked here." "How many presents?" Bill asked, chewing his straw flat. "Forty. Maybe fifty. The boy's turning seven and his father owns three car dealerships." "So the loot is Lego." "The loot is unopened, boxed, gift-receipted Lego. Do you know what that fetches online?" "I know what a seven-year-old sounds like when he cries." "Then wear the earplugs." She tapped the napkin twice. "You go in as the clown." Bill set down his straw with the solemnity of a man laying a wreath. "Absolutely not." "You own the shoes." "I own those shoes because of an unrelated incident, and you know it." "Twenty minutes of balloon animals, then you lead the parents out to the piñata while I load the van." "I can only make a snake." "Call it an eel. Children can't tell the difference." Molly slid a red foam nose across the table, past the ketchup. "Two o'clock sharp. There's a photographer, so chin down, wig straight." Bill turned the nose over in his enormous hands, examining it like a live grenade. "And if a child requests a giraffe?" "Then you hand them a snake," she said, standing, "and you tell them it's abstract."