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The phone jolted Doppio from his sleep on the very first ring. By then, he was accustomed to sleeping on alert – as the boss’s most trusted subordinate, it was his duty to be ready at all times in case he was needed. And he was needed, and needed often.
Not that Doppio would ever complain. Nothing was more thrilling to him than being of use to the Boss. Even now, he could hardly believe that someone as powerful and brilliant as the Boss would put so much faith and trust in someone as unremarkable as him. He wasn’t being modest, either. For every job he was sent on, Doppio seemed to find some way to bungle it up. More often than not the Boss himself had to step in and protect him, when Doppio should have been the one protecting the Boss. And at the end of each job, it never seemed to matter to the Boss how much Doppio screwed up – he’d always be there on the other end of the line when it was all over, with nothing but praise on his lips for how good Doppio had been and how well he’d done. My Doppio, the Boss liked to call him, and no matter how many times he heard those two words they always made Doppio’s stomach tingle in all the best ways.
Besides: Doppio didn’t exactly have any hobbies to conflict with his dedication to Passione. Just the occasional hour or two of local cable television in whatever cheap motel he happened to be staying at, and at night, the usual dreams.
By the second ring, Doppio’s feet were on the floor. He listened… there was no doubt about it: the ringing was coming from the bathroom this time.
(In his dreams, he was someone else, someone who plotted and schemed and gave orders and who carried out assassinations in a cool collected way Doppio wished he could emulate. In short, he dreamed of the life he imagined the Boss must lead, and he liked those dreams, not because he wanted to be the Boss, but because the dreams somehow made him feel closer to the person he admired most).
He found the phone floating in the tub, which he had neglected to drain after his bath the night before. A strange place to leave a phone – thankfully, it seemed to be in working order. How considerate of his Boss to buy him a waterproof phone! Technology these days sure was incredible.
The phone gave a squeak of protest when Doppio shoved it against his ear.
“It’s Doppio.”
“Good morning, my beautiful Doppio,” the voice on the phone purred.
Those five words were enough to suffuse Doppio’s cheeks with heat.
“B-Boss,” he stammered. Then, collecting himself – he was Passsione’s second-in-command after all, and he would nothing if not try to act like it – he added, “You needed something?”
“I have a very important mission for you today, my Doppio. King Crimson will be escorting you – it is on its way now.”
The Boss only ever gave him use of King Crimson when he was sent on risky assassinations. Already, his day was shaping up to be a dangerous one.
At the motel room door, he heard a knock.
“Boss,” Doppio whispered, crouching down beside the tub. “Boss, I think the target’s here already.”
On the other end of the line, the boss chuckled.
“That should be King Crimson now. Let it in – but first, I would like you to put on the outfit laid out on the spare bed. Can you do that for me, Doppio?”
Doppio hesitated. Did the Boss really mean to suggest that it was King Crimson on the other side of the door? Whenever the Boss had granted him use of King Crimson in the past, its powers had come to him instantly – the stand’s arms appearing at his side, or its epitaph on his forehead. But he had no time to dwell on the thought, because the Boss had given him an order.
On the motel room’s second bed, still made up just as Doppio had found it upon checking in, a suit was laid out. How the suit had gotten there in the first place, he couldn’t be sure, but the Boss was always thinking ahead, so of course he could have find a way to leave the outfit out for Doppio to find if he really wanted to.
“I see it, Boss.”
“Excellent. Put it on and go answer the door.”
Before he could ask for any more details, the Boss hung up. Blinking a few times, Doppio became aware that he was holding a rubber duck against his face. When had that gotten there? Then he remembered the task at hand, and the rubber duck fell forgotten to the floor.
He did as he was asked. The suit fit even better than expected, nipping snuggly at his waist while keeping a loose, straight fit through his arms and legs. Not the kind of thing Doppio would normally consent to wear – although he did like the colour, a dark mauve that reminded him of a more sophisticated version of his preferred shade of purple – but if it was for the Boss, he could manage it.
The knock came again. Upon opening the door, Doppio discovered King Crimson waiting for him.
All of it.
Never before had the Boss given him a mission so serious that it required full use of King Crimson’s body. Exactly who was his target, anyway?
Before he could ponder the question further, King Crimson proceeded to shove an enormous bouquet of flowers into his arms.
“Are… are these for the mission?” Doppio asked, eyeing the dead plants. They were dark maroon, the same color as the suit. Maybe he was meant to use them as some kind of camouflage?
King Crimson nodded.
For Doppio, seeing his Boss’s stand not only as its own separate entity, but acting of its own accord, was disarming, especially when King Crimson took his hand and led him outside. The thought of the Boss having anyone else he could trust as much as he trusted Doppio, even if that someone was his own stand… Doppio would be lying if he said he didn’t feel at least a little jealous. Especially when King Crimson seemed to know more about the nature of their mission than Doppio.
***
The location King Crimson brought him to was an upscale deli downtown. As far as scouting locations went, Doppio could have picked better. The deli was a popular spot for couples; he looked out of place, sitting all by himself at a table. After all, no one could see the stand sitting opposite of him, except of course other stand users. Therein was another problem: wouldn’t the target spot him right away, if they were a stand user? King Crimson didn’t exactly blend in, what with its wall-eyed stare and the grimacing epitaph at the center of its forehead.
He had to have faith in the Boss, Doppio reminded himself. Surely, the Boss would have taken such considerations into account. Perhaps the target was not a stand user at all, or perhaps King Crimson’s presence was designed to draw them out.
It would be nice, he thought, if the Boss were to call him up right about now and fill him in. He liked it when the Boss had a plan; the way the Boss had a habit of talking about the future with unwavering certainty made Doppio feel secure. But the Boss surely wouldn’t risk calling him in such a busy area.
To keep himself busy, Doppio turned to scan the deli’s patrons, seeking out anyone who looked suspicious. Just then, he felt something press against his chest.
King Crimson was jabbing him with a menu.
Doppio looked on, incredulous, as the stand once more shoved the menu into his chest. A selection of ugly words was beginning to string itself together in his head, when all at once a revelation dawned on him: he was bound to draw attention to himself, spying on the deli’s other customers without ordering anything.
“Alright, fine, guess I’ll order,” he said, taking the menu from King Crimson with a wink to show he’d caught on to its plan. Even if it was just the boss’s stand, he couldn’t allow it to think that he didn’t have a handle on the situation.
King Crimson’s grimace reshaped itself into something that might have been considered an attempt at a smile, in a particularly generous definition of the the word 'smile'. The result was nothing short of nightmare inducing.
Doppio shuttered. His Boss’s stand was powerful, of that there was no argument – but did it have to look so frightening?
When the waitress finished tittering over the beautiful bouquet of flowers and asking him if he was waiting for a date (once again, the Boss had clearly put forethought into the mission – pretending that he was waiting for a date gave Doppio the perfect excuse to stall for time), he ordered the cheapest thing he could find off the menu. Or tried to, anyway. When he made to hand the menu back to the waitress, King Crimson stopped him with a hand on his arm, and it continued to do so each time thereafter, until Doppio had ordered one of almost everything on the menu.
Right. He was trying to blend in.
Not wanting to look around him again, lest he draw any more attention to himself, Doppio took a moment to study the stand in front of him. To his alarm, it was watching him right back, its chin propped up in its hands and its lips curled back in a grimace of delight. He really wished it would go back to looking angry.
Yeah. One moment of studying King Crimson was enough. More than enough. He thanked his lucky stars for the desert menu the waitress had left on the table – it gave him something to look at for the next twenty minutes that wasn’t King Crimson’s face.
Unfortunately, King Crimson was a mouth breather, and no amount of reading over the description of the Triple-Decker Black Forest Delight could distract him from the way the air whistled through King Crimson’s clenched teeth. Did stands even need to breathe?
God, he hoped his target showed up soon. He’d even settle for being assassinated right about now. Dying in the line of duty for his Boss was what he’d signed up for. This… this was not.
He always felt queasy with anxiety on missions, especially dangerous ones like the one he was on now. Eating was the last thing on his mind; nonetheless, when his dishes came, he picked at them anyway, just for something to distract himself from King Crimson's unnerving presence.
By the time he was feeling full, Doppio began to worry. He’d been there almost an hour, and the target had yet to show. Had something gone wrong?
When the waitress brought him his check, Doppio reached into his pockets to pull out his wallet – only to remember that he’d left his wallet in the back pocket of his usual pair of jeans.
Before he had time to panic, onto the table King Crimson slammed its fist. Doppio leapt up with a start. In one stiff movement, King Crimson uncurled its fist and drew its hand away, leaving behind a crumpled pile of 100,000 lire banknotes.
King Crimson looked Doppio dead in the eyes (or it made a valiant effort to do so, anyway; its eyes being spaced as wide as they were, looking straight ahead meant going cross-eyed), as if daring him to challenge it for the bill. Not that he could challenge it, even if he wanted to.
Slowly, his Boss’s stand rose from its chair and lumbered toward the door. Grabbing the flowers from the table, Doppio followed after.
This was bad. Disaster level bad. The target hadn’t shown – they couldn’t have caught onto the Boss’s plans, could they? Doppio’s stomach gave a lurch. If that was the case, if the target had outwitted them, then his Boss’s life could already be in danger.
“Where to now?” he asked King Crimson, his words tumbling out in a rush. He hoped the stand had been given some other clues as to the target’s whereabouts. If that was the case, they still had a chance of stopping the target before any harm could befall the Boss.
To Doppio’s relief, King Crimson grabbed his hand and started off down the street at once. The urgency to the stand’s movements suggested that it knew where it was going.
As they jogged along, his head filled with the sound of buzzing. The prelude to battles were always the worst for him: all the buildup, all the suspense… half the time, he felt like he was going to puke. This time, he might actually puke. This mission had carried on far too long. The suspense had worn him down, and he hadn’t even located his target yet.
Into a park, King Crimson led him. For the next ten minutes the stand seemed to do nothing but lead him in circles, up and down path after path past flower gardens, children playing in the fields, and couples seated together on park benches, their heads close together as they talked at laughed. Just as Doppio began to wonder if King Crimson was lost after all, they came to a stop in front of a fountain, in a corner of the park enclosed by a stand of trees. Looking around him, Doppio noted that the area appeared empty, but that didn’t mean anything – if the person they were after was as good as Doppio was starting to believe they were, they would have no trouble hiding in a place like this.
“Here?” Doppio asked.
King Crimson nodded. It had not let go of his hand yet; on the contrary, it now had both of Doppio’s hands, one in each of its own. In their present situation, however, Doppio had too much on his mind to consider this detail.
“If you’re sure – ,” he began.
The skin around King Crimson’s eyes crinkled, and that Doppio found impossible to ignore. Just as he found it impossible to ignore the way King Crimson puckered its thin lips over its clenched teeth before stooping down to slot those lips against Doppio’s own.
All at once, Doppio completely forgot about the mission.
Wailing, he stumbled back, arms wheeling around him.
Right then, at the worst possible moment, he heard a phone ring. Whirling around, he searched the ground for any sign of his phone, wondering if he had dropped it. Across his back, he felt something cast a shadow. When he glanced up, King Crimson was standing over him, holding a phone in its outstretched hand.
Snatching the phone away, Doppio thrust it against his ear, turning his back on King Crimson.
“Boss!” he exclaimed. Half a dozen questions all vied for attention at once: What’s going on? Where’s the target? What the hell is your stand doing?
The Boss gave a breathy sigh. “Oh Doppio, my beautiful Doppio… I had such a lovely time. The kiss, I hope, was not too much for a first date?”
“D-d-date?!”
“Of course, my cute little Doppio.” Without warning, King Crimson lurched forward and clutched Doppio’s free hand, cradling it to its chest in a way that seemed almost… affectionate? “What better way to reward my most loyal subordinate?”
Doppio looked from the phone to King Crimson, and from King Crimson back to the phone again. Keeping one eye fixed on the stand, he lifted the receiver to his mouth.
“Boss,” he began, “are you trying to tell me that King Crimson – .”
“Yes, I suppose I must apologize.” Sure enough, King Crimson gave his hand an apologetic squeeze. “As much as I would have loved to meet you face to face, you know how it is, my darling Doppio. Only you are permitted to hear my voice – no one must ever see my face, not even you!”
What was it his Boss had told him, during the many times he’d lectured Doppio on King Crimson’s powers? Oh, right. That the Boss’s stand was an extension of himself, and couldn’t act apart from his – or in certain cases, Doppio’s – will.
He’d had his first date with the Boss. His first kiss with the Boss. And he hadn’t even realized it.
“Who knows? Perhaps we could do this again sometime.”
Doppio swallowed. “With King Crimson?”
Releasing his hand, the Boss’s stand reached out to brush a stray lock of hair back into place behind Doppio’s ear. To Doppio, the touch felt like being caressed by a cold gust of air – more resistance than actual substance, and lacking anything approximating human heat. He noticed for the first time how the painfully forced grin on King Crimson’s face was mirrored on the face of its epitaph.
“Yes, my Doppio – with King Crimson,” the Boss replied.
Why? Of all stands, why the hell did his Boss have to end up with this one?
On the positive side: today had done wonders for curing Doppio of his crush on his employer.
***
Later, Diavolo found himself musing over how flustered and nervous his subordinate had been on their first date together. Such shyness! …Of course, it was that exact trait that had endeared his double to him in the first place. Yes, a second date was definitely in order, if only to see Doppio make those cute faces of distress again. Diavolo smiled to himself as he picked up Doppio’s crumpled suit from the floor and thought of all the delightful ways he could use his stand to reward his favourite subordinate.