Hot Pink by Adam Levin

this. Your dad’s gonna hear about this, Clifford,” he told me.
    I said, “That ain’t mine.”
    â€œYour dad,” I said to Franco. “I don’t understand.” We were locked in back of the cops’ car, waiting. I didn’t know for what. The cops were outside.
    â€œIt was money,” Franco said. “It had to be money. He owed people money.”
    â€œThat’s not what I mean—I mean, we saw his ghost fifty-three days ago, Franco.”
    â€œI know,” Franco said.
    â€œBut he wasn’t dead then?”
    â€œNo,” Franco said.
    I said, “But why’d we see his ghost if he wasn’t dead, though, you think?”
    â€œBecause he was fucking with me,” Franco said. “He was always fucking with me.” Then he started crying, so I squeezed him on the shoulder and didn’t bother arguing. He rubbed his ear around, against my knuckles, which I guess is how you signal “I need a hug” if there’s a hand on your shoulder and your hands are cuffed.
    I squeezed the shoulder a couple more times.
    An Animal Control wagon entered Franco’s alley and the fat cop and the other one got into the car.
    The cops split us up when we got to the station. I never got put in a cell or anything. They made me stand in a squeaky hallway off the lobby with a woman cop who was pretty for a woman cop. She gave me a couple LifeSavers, butter-rum-flavored, which are actually really good, and we talked about the Bulls. She didn’t know a lot about the Bulls and neither did I, so mostly what we said was stuff about Michael Jordan, and how he was the greatest because of how he dunked or whatever and had expensive shoes, and the cop thought he was handsome.
    I don’t know what they did with Franco. He told me later that they tied him to a chair and slapped him around to try to get him to confess to having a dog that would kill on command, but they couldn’t break him. After that, he told me, his ma picked him up, and on their way out of the station a “special forces homicide cop” took them aside and told them it was Finch who murdered his father. Franco’s a liar, though, and he’s crazy. I mean, a lot of bad stuff kept happening to him, and it happened in stupider ways than it should have—like I still don’t get how his ma thought he’d bond with the sleaze if the sleaze delivered him the news about his dad. About his dad being dead. I don’t get how anyone’s ma could think something like that, but especially not Franco’s. Maybe she was crazy, too. Or just temporarily. Maybe she went nuts cause she still loved Franco’s dad. Or maybe it was one of those things where you want something to be one way so bad that even though it’s the exact opposite way you’re still hopeful. And maybe I’d be the same way as Franco if all the same stuff that kept happening to him kept happening to me. But tied him to a chair and slapped him around, though? Come on. And his dad wasn’t murdered. He drove into a tree and it might have been on purpose. It was right in the newspaper that afternoon.
    I didn’t hang out with the woman cop for long. Half an hour tops. My parents got there fast. They entered the station with the ward alderman, Mikey Podesta—I only knew who he was cause the lady cop told me when the three of them walked past our squeaky hallway—but they left with just me a few minutes after that.
    At first they hugged me and checked me over to make sure I wasn’t messed up or anything, but by the time we got in the car, they were getting pissed. At least he was. My dad, I mean.
    â€œWhy did you set that dog on the detective?” he said.
    â€œI didn’t know he was a cop,” I said. “I was trying to help my friend. Some guy was attacking my friend, I thought.”
    â€œYour friend who threw a TV at his stepdad,” my dad said.
    â€œHe’s