The Case of the Dearly Departed Money

When I can’t sleep—which is often ever since my neighbor gave birth to triplets who are apparently a genetic mix of opera singers and police sirens—I take a walk. Walking at night is a soothing adventure. Without the sound and smell of cars, the city almost passes as a nice place to live. Plus I get a rush from breaking the law at three in the morning, jaywalking with reckless abandon.

But there’s a downside too. When you’re all alone in the night, with only the sound of humming heaters to chase your footfalls down the sidewalk, your mind starts to play tricks on you. Beautiful women approach you, asking you out on dates. And for a sleep-deprived moment you think they’re sincere, until you realize that you smell like three-day old bacon. I should know better than to trust a woman dressed so provocatively she reminds me of grandma.

I found myself walking to my favorite all-night convenience store, Pedro’s Petrol. While other stores sold slushies and rotating hot dogs that, judging by the hair growing on them, had reached puberty, Pedro’s sold fresh burritos and quesadillas, which always sounded good at 3:00 a.m.

Typically a young man named Juan tended the register in the wee hours of the morning, but tonight I found the owner, Pedro himself, standing outside under a flashing neon sign that encouraged people to “Eat Burritos, Get Gas.”

“Pedro, why are you on the midnight shift?”

“Because Juan is too stupid to work here,” he said, stubbing a cigarette into the heel of his boot.

“That’s not a nice thing to say about your employee.”

“But it’s an accurate thing to say about my son. I still can’t believe what he did last week, and I can’t believe even more that my insurance company won’t help me clean up his mess.”

“Spill it, Pedro.”

“As you know, I own seven Pedro’s Petrols across the city. A former employee came here last week, told Juan he worked at another store and that he was supposed to check the balance in the safe. Juan let him do it, and this former employee walked off with $5,800 in cash. My insurance company said it was ‘voluntary parting,’ whatever that is, and denied the claim under the false pretense exclusion. ‘Voluntary parting?’ More like idiotic parting. Is there anything I can do, Ace?”

“Well, Pedro,” I said, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t be responsible if he drinks.”

Why was Ace butchering yet another cliché?

Click here to check your solution against Ace’s.

Jonathan Hermann (hermannism@gmail.com) is an IA contributing editor.