Even now her hand keeps creeping down and flicking at the thin red gash, pulling off bits of skin and blood and rolling them slowly between her thumb and middle finger. And it’s white beneath. That’s his clue, you see. The flesh is pure and white in the area where she works, leading him to conclude that the abrasion is nearly healed. She is almost whole again. Only the scratching at it betrays her, which is what initially caught his attention. When it did, he quickly replaced the Maxim back into its space and drifted over toward the girls. The Art in America was simply picked up on the fly. As cover.

He checks himself quickly in the window across the way, moving a bit to one side to get a better look. Out from behind the backward “Noble” painted on the glass. He smiles at his own outline, flashing a mouthful of store-bought teeth. Well, he didn’t actually buy the teeth themselves but has purchased the braces that cover them. The clear kind, those little strips of plastic that are only noticeable when you get close enough. From a distance you can barely tell. Barely. He checks one last time—in the hazy reflection, it simply looks as if he forgot to brush this morning—and then moves back to lean on the magazine shelf.

No cheap wire racks in a place like this, either. No. These magazines are all kept on lovely wooden shelves. Except for the “gentlemen’s issues,” of course, which are held behind the counter and wrapped in heavy plastic. Which is fine by him, since that’s where they belong. And anyhow, if he were to feel the need to make a purchase like that—only a Playboy or something equally harmless, never the hard stuff—then he would motor on down to 7-Eleven like any grown man would do and pick up some aspirin or a snack cake or hot sandwich beforehand like it’s meant to be done. The magazine in question would simply be an afterthought. Just for fun.

These girls, however, are more than that. Fun. No, this is serious business and he treats it as such. Hunter and prey have a healthy respect for one another, at least in his mind. From where he’s standing, these two young ladies are the be-all and end-all of his happy little Thursday. A day out of the office and what a nice surprise this is turning out to be. A smile begins to creep over his face but he quietly tucks it back inside his mouth. He doesn’t want a thing like that to give him away—too many housewives and protective mothers wandering the place to let that happen. He chomps down hard on the fleshy part of his tongue, really digging in with his teeth, and the grin begins to fade. Suddenly, he’s back in business.