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beer. He asked around the table and said, “Make that five cold ones, Davy.”
    I brought in the beers just in time to see Jack put down his cards. Phil groaned and threw his cards into the middle of the table. Jack grinned and raked in all the chips. He took a long drink from the cold beer I handed him.
    â€œWhat do you say we take a break?” one of the other guys said. He was a smoker and my mother didn’t allow smoking in the house. Phil went along with it even though I bet he used to smoke his cigars in the house before we moved in. The three guys who did smoke went outside. Phil pulled out a cigar and went with them. I went back through the kitchen and into the garage. Jack followed me.
    â€œHow’s the job going, David?” he said. Then he stepped into the garage. “Wow!”he said. “I didn’t know this place even had a floor. You must have worked your butt off all day.”
    He had that right.
    â€œWho’s winning?” I said.
    â€œThe night’s still young,” Jack said. “Things could change.”
    â€œYeah, but right now, who’s ahead?”
    â€œI am.”
    â€œAnd Phil?” I asked.
    â€œI guess you could say he’s not doing so well.”
    Just like always. I’d hung around more than a few of their games over the years, a lot of times running beers for them and refilling bowls of chips and pretzels. Sometimes I ordered pizza for them and brought it in with paper plates and napkins.
    â€œI guess that’s because you’ve been playing serious poker for a long time,” I said.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Jack said.
    â€œI mean, you have way more experience with cards than me. When Phil plays me,he wins more than he loses.” I’d been thinking about that all afternoon. If it was something really big that had to get done in order to stop my mother from having a meltdown, I always lost. If it was something small that Phil could just decide not to do, I sometimes won. “But when he plays you, he usually loses more than he wins, and when he wins, he doesn’t win big. Or maybe he’s just lucky with me and not so lucky with you.”
    Jack glanced back over his shoulder into the kitchen. He closed the door. He said, “If I tell you something, you have to promise to keep it to yourself, okay, David?”
    I nodded.
    â€œI guess you could say in a way that I win more because I have more experience,” he said. “But not in the way you mean. Phil has a tough time playing against me because I have a tell on him.”
    â€œA tell?” I said. “What do you mean?”
    â€œIn poker, a tell is any kind of gesture or mannerism that gives you some ideaof how good or bad a person’s hand is,” Jack said. “For example, if you see a player constantly looking at his hole cards, that’s often a tell of a poor hand. Of course, some players know that, so they check their hole cards a lot even when they have a great hand, just to throw you off. Another example is that some people play with their chips every time they bluff without even realizing it. Some blink a lot more than usual when they have a strong hand. If you pay attention, you can pick up tells on people. It can give you an edge.”
    â€œAnd you have a tell on Phil?”
    Jack nodded.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    Jack shook his head. “I can’t tell you that. But if you watch him, maybe you can figure it out.” He studied me for a few minutes. “Phil is pretty consistent,” he sa id. “It do esn’t mat t er i f he’s playing poker or he’s doing something else, you can always tell when he’s not on the level.”
    â€œYou mean, when he’s bluffing?” I said.
    Jack nodded. “Or when he’s doing something that maybe he shouldn’t. Or being untruthful.” I noticed he didn’t come right out and say cheating or lying. “But if you want to figure