Chapter Five

Come sunrise, the four thieves got into Jernigan's Nissan Pathfinder SUV and drove towards a corner at the far edge of Washington Street. Jernigan took the wheel while Beaupre rode shotgun. Alice and Unger both sat at the back, a large mixed-breed dog between them. The mutt itself had been stolen earlier as an improvised surveillance prop. Because the Pruitt kid had most likely caught on to her "athletic mother" act after yesterday's fiasco, Alice's continued use of the baby stroller was out of the question. Today, charged with preliminary reconnaissance, the lady thief had to play the part of anonymous dog-walker – another excuse to be roaming the neighborhood without raising suspicion. For Alice, however, it was another needless vexation. Seated beside her, the scruffy animal towered a whole head above the notorious woman. Without any regard for her reputation or her personal space though, it pressed its damp nose against the smooth skin of her cheek and licked her indiscriminately. Its breath stunk. Yet, the more she shoved it away, the more vigorous became the pooch's attempts to befriend her. She rolled her eyes, wrinkled her nose, snorted in unconcealed disgust.

When the Pathfinder reached its destination, Alice put on her sunglasses and got down. The dog likewise leapt onto the pavement and hung out its tongue at its new mistress, wondering where she'd take it next. They were seven houses and ten minutes away from the Pruitts' home. Grey skies hovered overhead. Snow fell with increasing intensity. Weather reports mentioned a freak blizzard on the approach. Indeed, there was no better time to commit a crime.

The street was practically emptied of people. Most folks remained indoors, either freshening up or setting breakfast. They wouldn't be on their way to work or school until a bit later. It was too bad, Alice mused; these mediocre suburban twits were missing out on a rare sight. It was the first time since arriving in the neighborhood that Alice decided to dress like the incredibly swanky, incredibly fashionable diva she long sought to project of herself. The woman wore an elegant mink overcoat that descended down to her knees, displaying only her black, single buckle-strap platform boots and her dark leather gloves. She rounded off the outfit with a fox fur hat in the same shade of grey as her coat. To say the least, she looked completely out of place in the quiet locality. And as if a runway model strutting down the catwalk, the lady thief advanced with utmost grace and composure. Soon, the Pruitt household loomed before her.

"Remember your mission objectives, Alice," Beaupre broke in through her earpiece.

"Certainly. Scout the area. Apply diplomacy where possible. Retreat. These are very basic instructions, Mr Beaupre."

"Just remember, don't get reckless. Do I make myself clear?"

She didn't answer. After all, she didn't need the older man to remind her, didn't need him breathing down her neck or holding her hand, she thought. She could handle herself just fine. Besides, she was all on her own now. No Unger, no Jernigan – none of those unruly boys to slow her performance. She seriously considered bending the rules a tad more. If she wanted to, they couldn't stop her from undertaking a preemptive strike solo anyway. The brat wouldn't know what hit him. He might even drop his pants and wet himself, she pondered with a stroke of amusement.

[…]

It was just as expected. The burglars began their offensive bright and early. Alex Pruitt watched from his bedroom window as Alice drew close to the front porch. The big butt lady was walking a large dog on a leash, looking as if this were the first time she ever held a leash and as if she hated every moment of it. For his part, the boy recognized the mixed-breed as belonging to the Barnet family from across the street, very likely kidnapped while the Barnets were on vacation in Europe. The sight of the mismatched pair gave him an interesting idea.

He rummaged through the tool box he'd borrowed the previous night from his brother, carefully taking out a silver dog whistle from amongst the pile of pranking paraphernalia. He parted the curtains ever so slightly, ready to test his weapon.

With moderate strength, the boy blew on the dog whistle. It emitted a sound beyond human hearing. Alex couldn't sense anything; same went for the well-dressed woman out on the yard. The dog, however, could hear it alright. The canine's ears perked up. Instantaneously, it lunged towards the direction of the house. The sudden action caught the lady thief off guard. Alex beamed as he observed her stumble forward from being pulled by the hefty mixed-breed. Teeter-tottering on a wobbly leg while flailing her other limbs in the air, she was forced to hop on one foot to catch up with the dog and avoid losing her equilibrium. The sound of her girlish squeals made it all the way up to his bedroom on the second floor.

His experiment worked seamlessly. Immediately, he saw through Alice's façade of poise and confidence – she wasn't really in control of anything!

"First, let's free the hostages," Alex whispered mischievously to his pet rat.

At this, the boy ran downstairs to the foyer and silenced the doorbell by slitting the wires. It was time to put his tool to even better use.

[…]

Alice cursed the mixed-breed. She couldn't fathom what was up with the dog. One minute it was on its best behavior, the next it was pulling some random, crazy stunt. The woman had almost fallen over face-first because the mutt couldn't resist the urge to chase whatever it had just spotted. Whether it was some raccoon or maybe the dog's own shadow, she didn't care. Thankfully, she thought, she was still in command. She held the leash, she walked the mutt, and not the other way around. In truth, the lady thief had never liked dogs. To her, they were just like men: filthy, careless, dumb animals with disgusting habits that couldn't be disciplined out of them; they were utterly beneath her, utterly contemptible. Nevertheless, the woman chose to overlook what had just happened. She needed to focus.

She yanked hard on the leash, almost choking the dog, as she neared the porch. The animal yelped feebly, but the pitiful call fell on deaf ears. Alice pressed a button on the hinge of her sunglasses then spoke into her wrist communicator. "I've switched on the fiber optics," she reported to the three waiting men.

"Good," Beaupre replied. "Ring the bell. The father is abroad. That makes the mother head of the household. Speak to her politely. Explain the mix-up with the toy car and request for its return."

"I still do not see why a preemptive strike is off limits."

"Alice, follow your directives. If the mother is reluctant, offer her cash compensation. Apply diplomacy. Exhaust all possibilities. She won't believe the child. I want a clean end to this operation."

The older man was getting soft. Alice didn't want things to end peacefully. That'd mean letting the boy off minus any repercussions. She still hadn't forgiven the brat for the incident with the pine cones and, in all honesty, she wanted to pay him back somehow. Nothing would be more satisfying for her. Regardless, she knew that she couldn't simply proceed with a lone take-down operation in a house full of people – that would be insane. She ended up ringing the doorbell as Beaupre instructed, hoping that nobody would be there to answer, except maybe for that oblivious little eight-year old.

To her secret joy, the first ring solicited no answer. The same result followed from the second. Perhaps the other Pruitts had gone off to work and school ahead of schedule. Either that or they'd gone off for a family jog, leaving the boy at home with the chicken pox. She needed to confirm it. She spoke into her communicator again. "Are we certain the target has not left?"

"Negative. We would have seen that," Jernigan responded robotically.

Alice tried to peer in through the curtained windows, but could only find an empty hallway. The woman became gradually convinced that the other Pruitts had left, that her standing there on the porch for so long was making her look foolish. She stomped her boot on the floorboards. "I repeat. There is no movement in sight. Permission to enter."

"You do not have authorization to – !" The lady thief disabled her earpiece, cutting Jernigan off mid-sentence.

Frankly, she was fed up with these cowards. She detested what she perceived to be the indecision of impotent men – an indecision that may well lose them the ten million dollar chip. She opted to carry out a preemptive strike. Her cohorts could sit back, relax, and watch all they liked; her wrist communicator and the fiber optics in her sunglasses would be running the entire time. She craved an audience to this flawless victory. Moreover, she wanted to show off her talents as a superior thief, ruthless and surgical and devoid of any compassion whatsoever. The men in the SUV had privileged seating, and she resolved to give them a lot of eye candy. So without further ado, the woman shed her mink overcoat. Underneath the expensive furs, Alice revealed a black tactical leather catsuit that zipped in the front. The outfit matched perfectly with her boots, her gloves, and the utility belt at her narrow waist. Its form followed the contours of her slender legs without fail, captured the fullness of her dangerously alluring ass. She smiled arrogantly. There was a lock that needed picking.

[…]

The boy hid behind the living room curtain. The lady thief's silhouette flashed menacingly across the window then withdrew. Seeing that the coast was clear, Alex put the silver whistle to his lips and blew. The sound of the dog's footsteps reached him as it padded across the porch to where the living room window hung. Alex swiftly dashed into the dining room where he blew the whistle again. As predicted, the mixed-breed crept up to the source of the disturbance, its leash looping once around its mistress's legs. Things were going according to plan. He repeated the process, noting with glee that his first victim didn't notice she was already trapped. The leash had looped around her legs twice, a sign of her inevitable defeat.

Alex hurried out the back door. Upon his arrival at the side of the front porch, an indecent image greeted him as he peeked on the burglar. Like some kind of flasher or exhibitionist, the woman had removed her fur coat to show she was wearing a super tight spy costume underneath, the kind the kid had ever only seen in movies or comics. The whole outfit seemed as though it were painted on her skin. Even worse, from this particular angle, her cheeks jutted out visibly, calling attention to every facet of the big butt lady's posterior. The boy rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue.

He needn't delay more, he thought. Then and there, Alex blew on the silver whistle with all his might.

[…]

Woof! Woof! Woof!

Wheeling around, panting excitedly, the dog barked several times in loud, rapid succession. Alice felt her body grow stiff. The small hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. That noise must have been strong enough to rouse the whole block!

She reflexively raised her fist to quiet the tattletale mutt, but before she knew it, the mixed-breed had charged headlong across the front porch. The leash immediately tightened around her ankles, forcing her beautiful legs together. The lady thief was swept off her feet. In an instant, Alice collapsed squarely upon her curvaceous ass with a massive and breath-taking thud. She let out a prissy, cowardly cry – the kind little sissy girls make when calling out for their mommies. Memories of the suffering she'd just endured the day prior came flooding back to her. She wanted to get up, to run as far away from the house as humanly possible. The galloping dog left her no opportunity, though, even to massage her big, smarting bum. It hauled her along as if she weighed less than a rag doll.

Normally, being a control freak, Alice would've put her foot down the moment anything at all didn't go as she desired. Stuck in her humiliating pose however, legs hopelessly immobile, ass kissing the ground, she could only watch the nightmare play out in front of her. The entwined figures streaked past the row of wooden benches which decorated the front porch, nearing imminent collision with a thicket of low-lying yew hedges and dwarf junipers. Alice's pulse quickened. From her perspective, the foliage up ahead grew larger and larger. She shut her eyes. Perhaps, she was still asleep at the ranch house. This simply couldn't be happening to her, she reasoned. Indeed, everything seemed so unreal – that is, until the leaves and branches finally made contact, knocking off her fur hat and fiber optics, whipping her across the face, and pulling at her hair. Various pebbles and hardened clumps of soil crackled under her precious tush. Fallen twigs snapped. Behind the helpless woman trailed a path of upturned earth and snow, marking the entire length of her embarrassing doggy ride.

Overall, the experience felt as though she were having her bare buttocks wiped with sandpaper while being simultaneously punished everywhere else by an insatiable throng of riding crops. She couldn't help but gain a growing awareness that the friction was beginning to scorch her ass. The catsuit itself proved a terrible error in judgment. The lightweight material offered her zero protection from this latest debacle.

"St-stooop! No! Noooo! Please! Ahhhhh! He-help! Somebody! Aaah! Nooo! Ooh!" Like some frightened feline having its butt shaved, the classy cat burglar shrieked and squealed in utter displeasure. Her canine captor, however, ignored her pleas. It burst through the foliage with Alice in tow. Consequently, the woman left a human-sized gap in the Pruitt's foundation garden. She thrashed her arms, tried to get ahold of a root or stalk by which she could secure herself, but her flimsy, feminine grip failed her.

Fortunately, as the mixed-breed abruptly turned into the driveway, the leash around the lady thief's ankles came undone. She tumbled unto the pavement, hurtled towards the dirty slush piled up on the edge of the drive. Imitating a loose log of timber, she rolled on. Her journey ended only when she settled face-down upon the aforementioned mound of icy slop. For a few seconds, she lay there, unmoving. Then, with much effort, she pushed herself up. Face smeared with sludge, meticulously styled hair reduced to a disheveled mop, the villainous beauty appeared less of a beauty and more a foul, messy parody of her formerly glamorous self. Her catsuit was flecked with dirt, leaves, twigs, and other bits of nameless debris. Her earpiece dangled haphazardly over her shoulder.

A look of pure murder burned in Alice's eyes as she spat out a mouthful of yew needles and gagged at the thought of maybe having swallowed a bug or two.

By now, the dog was nowhere to be found. Alice didn't give a damn, though. As far as she was concerned, the mongrel could rot in whatever rathole it managed to lose itself in. The woman was, rather, more interested in salvaging what little pride she could muster. Shifting her unsmiling gaze, wary of onlookers, she surveyed the area. An empty backdrop greeted her, signaling that no one else had glimpsed her shame (except for her three associates and, very likely, the accursed Pruitt brat). It sounded paranoid, yet neither could she deny the kid's ultimate involvement. The notion raised her annoyance to new heights.

Alice scrambled onto her feet, rubbed her tender rump, and sighed. On wobbly legs, she moved to retreat, but something caught her attention. From where the lady thief stood, she could spot her fox fur hat resting by the wayside. She easily recalled its exorbitant price tag, its authentic make. The voluptuous criminal refused to abandon such a posh symbol of excess. Besides, the fur hat offered an additional saving grace; it could spare her the awkwardness of having others notice her now unkempt hairdo. This eliminated all doubts she may have harbored. She simply had to retrieve it. Both materialism and the wish to prevent any further humiliations consumed her. She limped towards her object. In any case, she reckoned, it was improbable for the situation to go from bad to worse, to spiral so out of control as to defy all rationality.

Rrrrrrriiiiiiippppp!

She had spoken too soon! As Alice bent over, her round buttocks stretching the already unbelievably tight catsuit even tighter, a ripping sound cut through the air, echoed in the morning calm. The woman gasped. Her eyes stared out as if into the distance and bulged in horror. Emulating all the air-headed young girls she so very adamantly despised, the femme fatale's lips formed a shocked, bimbo-esque "O". She blushed. It seemed that the tense material of her catsuit had undergone enough stress for one day. The outfit had exploded at the seams, revealing a generous portion of her ass along with her vivacious red panties, embellished with lace, printed all over with cute little white hearts. The tear extended from just below her utility belt down to her crotch panel. An assortment of cables, transmitters, and batteries spilled out from the same gash. They dangled between her legs as though the tail had finally been pinned on the donkey. Of course, the donkey herself couldn't believe it; she didn't dare to believe it. Dignity in tatters, there was nothing left for her to do but request support from her adoring fans.

Squatting slightly, head bowed between her legs, the not-so-classy cat burglar reeled in her microphone cord, formerly her wrist communicator, feeling the line press against the crease of her bum. She then re-activated her earpiece. "I need assistance," she spoke begrudgingly. "I'm exposed."

The silly admission sent a shiver down her spine. On the other end, Jernigan tried to keep from snickering. "Maintain your position. Do not, I repeat, do not draw attention to yourself."

Alice put on her fur hat and her sunglasses. A breeze nipped her in the derriere.

She wanted an audience, and she got what she asked for. Those bumbling idiots back at the SUV had viewed every ridiculous detail of her humiliation. She knew Unger and Jernigan would never let her forget the fact. What bothered her most, however, was the idea that she had no choice but to rely on those cretins to rescue her. It was a bitter pill to swallow. Still, she had to get out of there and fast. She trudged onwards to the agreed rendezvous point, each step causing extra equipment to leak from the widening tear. Electronic alarms linked to her suit beeped non-stop. Upon arrival at the sidewalk, she crossed her arms, tapped her boot impatiently.

Unbeknownst to the woman, she couldn't have arrived at a more inopportune moment. Every door across the neighborhood was subsequently flung open. The lady thief was in for a nasty, nasty surprise! Swarms of children burst onto the scene. Ready for school, they headed for the bus stop located merely several meters beyond where Alice stood waiting. Obviously, it was impossible for this youthful horde to neglect the miserable adult and her much publicized panties. The lively red color contrasting against shiny black leather made her stick out. It was like waving a crimson rag before a herd of raging bulls.

"No! No! No! No! Nooooo! Aaah! Stop!" Alice cried to no avail.

The schoolchildren quickly surrounded her. They brought out their cellphone cameras, taking pictures and recording videos of her exposed backside. She clutched her ass with both hands in a futile attempt to cover herself, but the kids responded in kind; they slapped her wrists away and continued to overpower the professional thief undaunted.

Amidst shouts, one of the brats shot spitballs at her with a straw. Another yanked the waistband of her panties, expanding the tear in her catsuit and displaying more of her magnificent butt.

It was in such a powerless state that Beaupre, Unger, and Jernigan discovered their sole female colleague. She recognized the blue SUV and jumped into the backseat, screaming for Jernigan to drive, drive, drive. The little girl who'd grabbed the waistband of her panties let go then and there. The elastics snapped into place with a sharp, deafening crack, making the woman jerk upwards so that she hit her head on the roof of the getaway car.

"Yooouuuccchhh – !"

They then fled the vicinity, retreated towards the ranch house to recuperate.

On the way, Earl Unger broke into a fit of hysterical laughter. "I gotta congratulate you, Alice," the huge, muscular man howled, clasping his stomach. "That was a ripping good job you did there. I really liked the screaming for help bit. But my favorite part was THAT ending. Red with white hearts? Bow-wow!"

Jernigan smiled knowingly at the comment. He concurred. "Yes. You sure showed them."

Alice gnashed her teeth. "Shut up!" she yelled, struggling to preserve a domineering front while clinging to her tough girl persona. With her flushed cheeks, her untidy appearance, and her split pants however, the woman frankly came off as comical in her defensiveness. The merriment gradually died, but the insults remained etched in her consciousness. She felt infuriated. Still, despite having her ego wounded, despite having been made to look like a total ass, defeat was the last thing on her mind.

Revenge! She wanted revenge! Her bloodlust had been stoked, her hatred for the Pruitt boy solidified. The inevitability of all-out assault descended upon her and the rest of the gang. They'd be back!