“You’d hitchhiked?”

“I’se nineteen years old. You don’t have a car, that’s what you do.”

“We’re interested in anyone who might have seen a young girl hitchhiking in the area. Seventeen, eighteen years old. Dyed blond hair, blue eyes. She was probably five foot three, a hundred twenty-five pounds.”

“That’s half the girls I knew. All of ’em looked like that except the ones porked up on grass. Ever notice that? Girls’d smoke too much dope and munch themselves up to twice their normal weight. Either that or all the fat ones were on the street in those days, hoping to get laid. Who else would have ’em?”

“That’s a wholesome attitude.”

Pudgie laughed at that, genuinely amused while I was not.

I said, “Can we get back to the subject?”

“Which is what now? I forget.”

“The girl I described.”

“Sure. What’d she do?”

“She didn’t do anything. Her body was found dumped off the side of the road.”

His attitude shifted slightly. “Sorry to hear that. You never said she was dead or I wouldn’t have smarted off.”

“The point is, she had no ID and her body was never claimed. We’d like to find out who she is.”

“Yeah, but 1969? Why worry about it now after all these years?”

“It’s someone’s pet project. Couple of guys I work with. What about you? What happened when you got out of jail?”

“I had to call my old man to come pick me up. He was royally pissed. Soon as we got home, the shit-head threw me out; flung my clothes in the yard and broke my dinner plate on the porch. Fucking drama queen. Had to make a big scene, make sure all the neighbors knew he’d busted my ass.”

“At least he was willing to drive all the way from Creosote.”

“Yeah, but not before I’d spent the worst three days of my life in a cell with a bunch of freaks,” he said and shrugged. “Worst until then. I’ve seen a lot worse since.”

“You remember Lorenzo Rickman or Frankie Miracle?”

He snorted. “Lorenzo? What kind of name is that? What’s the guy, some kind of fruit?”

“You shared a cell with those two and a guy named John Luchek. You remember him?”

“Not especially. I guess. Any reason I should?”

“What about Rickman?”

“Is this about him? Mean, it’d be nice if I knew what you were going for.”

“We’ll get to that. Did the two of you talk?”

“Jail’s a bore. You talk just to keep from going out of your gourd. Food stinks, too, until you get used to it. Here, it’s not bad; you know, heavy on the starch. Macaroni and cheese tastes like library paste. You ever eat that stuff?”

I wasn’t sure whether he was referring to the jail cuisine or library paste. I’d dined on both, but I didn’t think that was any of his business. I wasn’t here to compare exotic foods. “What about Frankie? You have a conversation with him?”

“Must have. Why not? I’m a friendly little fuck. Course, I probably wouldn’t recognize those guys now if I saw ’em on the street.”

“Would it help if you saw pictures?”

“Might.”

I shifted the handset from my right ear to my left, tucking it between my cheek and shoulder so I could free my hands. I removed assorted mug shots from the file folder and placed them by twos against the glass in front of him. There were twelve in all; names, aliases, and personal data, wants and warrants carefully blocked out. Pudgie subjected the black-and-white photos to the same careful scrutiny he’d lavished on me. He pointed to Frankie. “That one? That’s Frankie. I remember him. Coked up and jumpy. He talked up a storm until the high wore off.”

“What about the others?”

“Maybe him. I’m not sure.” He pointed to Lorenzo Rickman, his memory better than he realized.

“Anyone else?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Did Frankie talk about his arrest?”

“What, you mean the chick he whacked? I guess he cut her up bad and then he fucked it up big time.”

“Like what?”

“Stole her car, for one thing. What’s he think? The cops aren’t going to put out a fuckin’ APB? Then he takes her credit card and uses that to pay for his entire escape. He left a paper trail a mile wide. Guy’s dumb as he is mean. You kill a girl, you ought to have more sense.” He stopped and stared. “I bet you know all this stuff, right? What’s the story, is he out?”