Gandolph Fitch has done his time for murder - twenty years - and is now a free man. And the meanest con on C block wants something from Rockford: the $1500 Rockford lost to him in a prison poker game. That's money Rockford just doesn't have, but Fitch is willing to take it in trade: all Rockford has to do is solve a twenty year old crime: who really killed Fitch's girlfriend?