CHAPTER 9.

SEVEN O'CLOCK in the evening was a busy time in late April on the stunningly beautiful campusof Duke University. The physical impressiveness of the students was visible everywhere at theself-proclaimed“Harvard of the South.” The magnolia trees, especially along Chapel Drive, were plentiful andin full bloom. The well-kept and striking orderliness of the grounds made it one of the mostvisually satisfying campuses in the United States.

Casanova found the fragrant air intoxicating as he strolled between tall gray stone gates andonto the university's West Campus. It was a few minutes past seven. He had come for one reasononly to hunt. The entire process was exhilarating and irresistible. Impossible to stop once hehad begun. This was foreplay. Lovely in every way.

I'm like a killer shark, with a human brain, and even a heart, Casanova thought, as he walked.

I am a predator without peer, a thinking predator.

He believed that men loved the hunt lived for it, in fact though most wouldn't admit it. Aman's eyes never stopped searching for beautiful, sensual women, or for sexy men and boys, forthat matter. All the more at a prime location like the Duke campus, or the campuses at theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, or North Carolina State University at Raleigh, ormany others he'd visited throughout the Southeast.

Just look at them! The slightly uppity Duke coeds were among the very finest and most“contemporary” American women. Even in dirty cutoffs, or ridiculous holey 501s, or baggyhobo's pants, they were something to see, to watch, occasionally to photograph, to fantasizeabout endlessly.

Nothing could be finer, Casanova thought, whistling a bar of the beamish old tune about a lifeof leisure in the Carolinas.

He casually sipped an icy Coca-Cola as he watched the students at play.

He was playing a game of skill himself several complicated games at once, actually. The gameshad become his life. The fact that he had a “respectable” job, another life, no longermattered.