Run: 2026-09-23-01M36VV7SM2H37RZRPF441AV18

The back booth of the Golden Spoon Diner smelled like burnt coffee and espionage, which was appropriate because Bill had spread what looked like a military operations map across the table except it was actually just a crayon drawing done by some kid on a placemat. He had marked it up with red pen. "Okay," Bill said, tapping the placemat with a coffee stirrer. "The party starts at two. Balloons go up at one-thirty. That gives us a five-minute window while the clown is doing his routine to get in through the garage entrance." Molly studied the placemat. It showed what might have been a house or might have been a potato. "You drew this yourself, didn't you?" "I stole the placemat. The crayons were complimentary." "That's not how crayons work." "It is at the Golden Spoon." Molly took a long sip of coffee and said nothing for a while. Around them the diner hummed with the midmorning lull of pancake eaters and retired men pretending to read newspapers. Bill watched her think. Molly thinking was like watching a cat calculate whether something was worth knocking off a shelf. The answer was always yes, but the calculation was never skipped. "The present table," she said. "Where is it?" "Front room. Against the east wall. The mother is aggressive about present placement — I watched her through the window yesterday moving things three times to get the right visual flow." "Of course she is." "There'll be about fifteen gift bags and maybe six wrapped boxes. I'm estimating the haul at somewhere between two and three hundred dollars in retail value." Molly raised an eyebrow. "We're robbing a seven-year-old's birthday party for three hundred dollars." "I said two to three hundred." "Bill." "What? There might be a good Lego set in there." She pulled the placemat toward her and studied the terrible drawing. Somewhere in the jumble of scribbles she seemed to find clarity that Bill had not intended. She circled two points with her finger. "Here and here. These are the problems." "That's the refrigerator and the dog's water bowl." "Then we have two problems." She pushed the placemat back. "Here's what we do. You create a distraction at the front. Not the garage — too many cars, too many witnesses, and the birthday boy's uncle already parks like he's abandoning the vehicle. We go through the side door into the mudroom. I handle the presents. You handle the exit." "What's my distraction?" "Guess." "The clown?" "The clown." Bill smiled. He liked it when things came together. He also liked clowns, though he understood that was a minority position. He raised his coffee cup in a quiet toast. Molly clinked hers against his. The coffee was terrible. The plan was worse. They would do it anyway.