It’s a good thing we had room for McSweeney in the basement. His snoring, had he slept in my room with me, would’ve struck through the ear plugs I had to nonetheless get out of storage. I get into my chair, grip my hook to a zipline on the ceiling overtop the stairs, and I ride down. As I prepare some toast, I notice McSweeney’s mattress is unoccupied. I check the time. It’s only almost 7:30. I have work in an hour but he doesn’t. Wonder where he went and why he’d be up so early. Did he sneak out? But why would he?

I begin to panic for a moment before I notice him on our short balcony. We have a window in the kitchen where we can see it. Deciding to abandon my breakfast, I go back up and get myself comfy.

“I was always forced awake,” the big guy explains, reading my mind as he hears my wheels coming up to him, “by the morning bell. I see it get bright, and I can still hear it ringing.”

“I…” I sigh. Prison sounds like it was horrible for him, in spite of what I remember hearing. “If we had known where you were, we would’ve-”

“Little Sly said the same thing to me in jail,” he says, turning toward me with a smile that seems kind of uncle-y. It’s actually warming my heart a bit. “You would’ve broken me out. And what I said to him was it was okay. That the food and library were good...but you know what I truly did miss about the world?”

“What!!?” 

I yelp. McSweeney doesn’t. Murray arrives over, having asked that.

“Murray, I didn’t think you had work today,” I blab out. Neither of us are up this early when we don’t have to be.

“I don’t,” he says over a yawn. “But I overheard you guys talking, and how could I resist checking out the fuss?” He gets a spare giant chair we’ve got and sits down with us again. I think the balcony might break under this obscene amount of weight definitely not designed for it.

“Well, anyway,” McSweeney continues, “the thing I missed was the thrill of thieving...with my family.” He turns, and I follow his eyes. He’s staring at a picture of us at the museum. We’re stealing the famous golden violin. We’re all grinning giddily and mischievously in it. “When Conner and M and I would manage to evade the authorities and we had money for vacations to spend together...I wouldn’t have traded that life for anything.” He wipes a tear, and returns to look at the scenery. I think I see a couple out for an early morning walk notice McSweeney and quickly look away, and I omit my theoretical discovery. “But then tension arose during a job in Florida.”

“What happened?” asks Murray.

McSweeney sighs. “We robbed this casino that was being run by a businessman doing laundering. It went alright until the getaway. Conner insisted on going through the forest, while Dr. M insisted on disappearing into the gen pop on the streets. We got into an argument because M said he told us all about the security routes and already told us this was the way we were going. The both of us gave funny looks at him, and maybe it was the heat of the moment, but M then accused us of not paying attention during his plan explanation. Then Conner argued he was the leader and some mission we weren’t a part of involved him nearly getting captured when he tried to escape through open public. We ended up going with Conner’s plan, and barely got away. It was actually terrifying. We continued doing jobs after that, but we knew M was feeling a sense of unearned inferiority, playing-”

“Second fiddle to Sly’s father,” I bring up. “Yeah, Dr. M mentioned how he felt we’re second to Sly, and how we were called the “Cooper” gang, not something like the Bentley Murray Sly gang.”

“I...I didn’t want to have a say in the argument when it reached a boiling point, and Dr. M took offense to that. So he turned against us and went off.” McSweeney looks right at me. “You’re never going to do something like that, are you?”

“N-No sir! Never!” I flap up both hands.

McSweeney smirks. “Yeah, I figured.” He looks at his knees. Or, tries to. “You know, Conner and Judes and little Sly and I still-”

“Judes? Is that...Sly’s mom?!” exclaims Murray.

McSweeney nods. “That was her name.”

“Was? Is she dead?” asks Bentley.

McSweeney shrugs. “Wish I knew. When Sly was a baby she left and I wasn’t kept in the light about why. Then the…” He sighs a deep sigh. “That gang, the...The Fiendish Five...I heard about the break-in. I never even got to say goodbye to ol’ uptight out-of-shape Conner…” He begins crying. “I was all alone and wasn’t able to adopt Sly, so I figured, I was ready to get caught. What was left in life for me anyway?”

No one speaks or moves for a solid minute that feels like thirty. McSweeney shakes a little bit, and we both hold his hands. I have to hoist my arm up a little bit for this but I don’t mind.

After a while, McSweeney turns his attention to us. Wiping his eyes, he says, “Sly never got to tell me about the two of you nor whatever adventures you had to have been on to take gold like that.” He gestures back to the violin photo. “What are some things you’ve gotten away with?”

“Well…” I contemplate.