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.