"Is the girl worth all this trouble?"
Torry grinned cynically. "Probably not. But Rose is a good, sound, practical minded girl. Maybe my money looks good to her. Roper left her four years ago with hardly any resources. For myself, after five years of dream stuff, a solid human girl like Rose looks pretty good. Dream stuff looks fragile, but it's mighty tough eating for a daily diet."
"So you want to find Roper. Preferably dead, you say. Does that include pushing him off a cliff if you find him?"
Torry snorted. "It could. That depends on Roper."
The policeman echoed the snort. "Roper is dangerous. You may have forgotten how tricky and ruthless he can be. Sounds to me like hunting a tiger with a butterfly net."
Torry smiled viciously. "Even that can be done ... if the net is big enough and strong enough. I'm counting on a curious twist in Roper's mind. I'm a challenge to him—the one man so far he failed to swindle or corrupt. He pulled a fast one about Rose, but he knows I wasn't there to fight back. It galls him. And if he knows I'm here, alive, and looking for him, maybe he'll find me and try to wipe out the one flaw in his record."
Grannar shot a glance of grudging admiration, but shook his head. "At the moment, I wouldn't count on it. He'll be busy and we'll see to it that he is. But if you want to go looking for him, maybe I can help you."
"Do you know where he is?"
"No, but I can give you some hints where to look."