Alan Cook - Aces and Knaves

The cloud I had been running in an hour before had already burned away when I pressed the button to boot my computer. I looked out my north-facing window and saw that the Los Angeles basin below was still covered with its own cotton cloud-blanket that extended over Santa Monica Bay. It made me feel as if I were alone in the world, even though when that cloud lifted I would overlook an area inhabited by several million people.

On a horizontal line from me the Hollywood Hills were particularly sharp this morning. I could make out the Hollywood sign and the Griffith Park planetarium with my "hunter's" eyes. (The disadvantage of having hunter's eyes is that I needed to wear glasses to read and use the computer. Maybe I was born in the wrong age.) More than 50 miles away, more east than north, Mt. Baldy's massive granite peak warmed in the morning sun, and I could even see Mt. San Gorgonio, with its higher and even more massive peak, farther east, almost 100 miles away. Haze would obscure it soon, but there was no sign of brown smog.

My view was the opposite of and better than that from most hillside homes seen in movies, which usually face south from the Hollywood Hills. Palos Verdes Peninsula, which tops out at 1,500 feet above sea level, is a well-kept secret from screenwriters. They must all be near-sighted.

I had a positive feeling about this world. After all, I was living in a year ending in three zeroes-and how many people were lucky enough to do that. A sense of anticipation enveloped me. Something good was going to happen before long.

I glanced out of another window, which faces west toward the swimming pool, with my father's castle beyond. (castle: noun. Definition 1. c. A large, ornate building similar to or resembling a fortified stronghold.) To my surprise, the old man himself was striding briskly past the pool toward the guesthouse where I lived. Why was he home at this hour? He was usually in his office in Torrance by seven.

More to the point, why was he coming here? I couldn't remember the last time he had set foot in the guesthouse. When we communicated with each other, which was rarely, it was in the castle. I quickly looked around; I didn't see anything incriminating, except the computer. And there was nothing I could do about that.

Maybe I could keep him downstairs. I raced down the stairs, two at a time; the carpeted steps tickled my bare feet. I arrived at the bottom just as he knocked sharply on the door. I opened it so fast that he stepped back with a surprised look on his face.

"Karl!" he said. "Uh, good morning."

I have rarely seen him flustered, even momentarily. I said, "Good morning, Dad."

"Uh, may I come in for a minute? I need to talk to you."

I was standing there, blocking the doorway. Maybe I was flustered, too. "Sure. Come on in." I stepped back so he could enter.

He stepped into the entryway and glanced at the room I used for a bedroom. The bed was unmade and clothes were strewn about. The sink of a small kitchen was visible through a doorway, or at least the dirty dishes that filled it were.

"Do you have a couple of chairs upstairs where we could sit down?" he asked, regaining his usual self-control.

Apparently, he was planning to stay for more than a minute. And I could understand why he found the downstairs unappetizing. I could offer him a glass of orange juice in the cramped kitchen, but I didn't think he'd go for that. I wasn't up to arguing with him. In my lifetime I could count on the fingers of one hand the arguments I had won with my father.

"Come on up," I said, turning and taking the steps two at a time.

He followed on my heels, also going two steps at a time. He was in remarkably good shape for a man pushing sixty. He walked four miles in the hills of Palos Verdes every evening with his wife, Jacie, when he wasn't traveling, and there are only two ways you can go: up or down. If you walk a round trip, as he did, you will get plenty of up along with the down.

Upstairs, the guesthouse contained two rooms plus a bathroom. The first room we came to was my office, so there was no avoiding the computer. When my father saw it he stopped and did a double take. It wasn't quite the latest model, but it did have a large monitor, color printer, scanner and high-speed Internet hookup.

Of course he understood what he was seeing. Richard Patterson was founder and CEO of a successful software company and computers were his life. But he didn't say anything and I quickly led the way into the next room, which I used as a living room. I offered him one end of a large couch that once had been in the castle, and sat at the other end so I wouldn't have to face him directly.

I had found through long experience that it was better to let him speak first when he had something on his mind. I tried to look at ease. I noted that his expensive blue suit and silk tie were more fashionable than the ones he had worn before he met Jacie. I felt underdressed in my T-shirt and shorts.

But he had always dressed well; my father had never heard of casual Friday. He looked good, with remarkably few wrinkles, and his short brown hair stubbornly refused to acquire more than a few streaks of gray.

"So what do you use the computer for, playing solitaire and hearts?"

"And Minesweeper." I was prepared for a dig about the computer. "It's a good game." Minesweeper was a Microsoft product, and Microsoft meant Bill Gates, whose fortune was worth some billions more than my father's, but if he caught my drift he ignored it.

"You aren't gambling on the Internet, are you?"

I was silent.

"I hope you haven't run up a ton of credit card debt again. Or worse, dealt with loan sharks. Because I'm not bailing you out."

That wasn't news. He hadn't bailed me out the first time, either. I wasn't about to tell him that I hadn't owned a credit card in two years and the only sharks I knew were at the Long Beach Aquarium. When you don't have anything nice to say, keep quiet. I kept quiet.

"Which brings me to the question of how you can afford the computer? Did one of your gay friends give it to you as a present in return for services rendered?"

The conversation, which had started out as being merely very unpleasant, was getting ugly. Sometimes I wish I had never let that deception get going. It began as a misunderstanding that I didn't bother to correct, since it ended my father's hounding me to come into the business, get married and have children. But it caused more problems than it solved. Now if I told him I wasn't gay he wouldn't believe me. I continued playing the strong, silent type, while boiling inside.

"Why?" he asked, his voice trembling. "Why did you get this way? Was it my fault?"

To my astonishment, my father suddenly burst into tears. He put his head down almost to his lap, placed his face in his hands and sobbed. In all my life I had never seen him cry, not even at my mother's funeral. This was worse than having him browbeat me. I didn't know what to do.

He stopped crying as suddenly as he had started, pulled a maroon silk handkerchief that matched his tie out of his lapel pocket and wiped his eyes with it. He took several deep breaths. Then he said, "I need your help."

Hearing this was almost as surprising as seeing him cry; I couldn't remember when he had ever asked for my help. And I couldn't recover that rapidly from the roller coaster ride down caused by his crying without risking serious effects from g-forces.

He looked at me, composed again, all signs of tears removed from his handsome face.

"What can I help you with?" I croaked.

"I don't like to interfere in the lives of my employees," he said, "but if they are having problems I want to give them assistance."