La Petit Mort

20

"Excuse me," someone tapped his shoulder so he turned around to look. "Do you know a man named Baizhu?" she asked. He processed for a moment. A brief thought went through his mind that Dottore hadn't actually killed that woman. He knew it couldn't be true. So, a twin? Either way, she was bad news. 

"Do you have business with him?" 

"I heard that there were rumors floating around about him seeing something and ending up in the hospital. I wondered if he might have any information on my missing sister. I don't mean any harm," she explained.

"I'm sorry, I don't think I can help you," he placed his hand over his chest, smiling politely. "My name is Pantalone, you see," he explained, enjoying the way it sounded rolling off of his tongue. Come to think of it, Dottore was a stage name too, what was his name before?

"If you do see him, could you give him this?" she hurriedly wrote down her number and shoved it into Pantalone's hand. She looked over her shoulder at the campus security and ran off before they could ask any questions. Pantalone waited for her to go out of sight before getting out his phone.

"Hello?" Dottore said. "It's rare for you to give me a call. Has something happened?" 

"Darling, I believe we may have a problem," he looked down at the paper in his hand. "You see, inquiring minds are asking questions." 

"Is that so?" 

"Did you know your little rendevous had a twin?" Pantalone stared out across campus as he waited for the response. 

"What are you going on about?" He could hear Dottore's confusion with the way his voice echoed in his ear. 

"The only woman I've seen you with, do you remember?" he cleared his throat. "I am in public. I don't want to cause a scene." 

"I see, a twin? That could be an issue." Dottore caught on. "Well, sweetheart, what would you like to do?" he snickered. "We could leave her alone. I've got someone else to turn my attention toward." 

"What?" He frowned, even though he knew Dottore wouldn't see. 

"You, sweetheart, I'm talking about you, don't sound jealous." 

"Oh, me?" 

"Are you at school? Why don't I come to pick you up after class? Let's go out for dinner." 

"There's no need." 

"Pity, I wanted to show you a good view." 

"No need to wait, darling, I no longer have a need to go to class. I'm withdrawing from school." 

"Then it really is a night worthy of a date. I can't say that I'm not thrilled about the prospect of seeing you more often but are you sure you want to drop out?" 

"It touches my heart that you're worried about me," he tapped his fingers against the table, "but instead of going into more debt, I would rather have people indebted to me."