After one of her patients threatens suicide, psychiatrist Margaret Ford (Lindsay Crouse) confronts the source of his anxieties, a downtown bookie named Mike (Joe Mantegna). Once she decides that Mike is not a serious threat, however, she herself becomes interested in his world of high-stakes gambling, and makes use of her skills at reading "tells," becoming entrenched in his dealings. Things get dangerous, though, when Mike turns out not to be a bookie at all, but a con man.