CARD ... TRICK

The game was stud. There were seven at the table, which makes for
good poker. Outside of Nick, who banked the game, nobody looked
familiar. They all had the beat look of compulsive gamblers,
fogged over by their individual attempts at a poker face. They
were a cagey-looking lot. Only one of them was within ten years
of my age.

"Just in case, gamblers," the young one said. I looked up from
stacking the chips I had just bought from Nick. The speaker was a
skinny little guy with a sharp chin and more freckles than I'd
like to have.

"If any one of you guys has any psi powers," the sharp-chinned
gambler said sourly, "you better beat it. All gamblers here will
recoup double their losses from any snake we catch using psi
powers to beat the odds."

He shot a hard eyed look around a room not yet dimmed by cigar
smoke. I got the most baleful glare, I thought. He didn't need to
worry. I'd been certified Normal by an expert that very evening.

The expert was Dr. Shari King, whom I had taken to dinner before
joining the game at Nick's. It had gotten to be a sort of weekly
date--although this night had given signs of being the last one.
For a while that spring, desoxyribonucleic acid had begun to take
second place in my heart. This is a pitiful admission for a
biochemist to make--DNA should be the cornerstone of his life.
But Shari was something rare--a gorgeous woman, if somewhat
distant, who was thoroughly intelligent. She had already earned
her doctorate, while I was still struggling with the tag ends of
my thesis.

"Poker, Tex?" Shari had asked, when the waitress was bringing
dessert. "Is this becoming a problem? You've played every night
this week."

"No problem, Shari," I said. "I'm winning, and I see no point in
not pocketing all that found money."