I turned my head, raised the napkin to my lips, and whispered, “Only if it’s not ripe.”
“Excuse me,” Esther said loudly, “is this ackee ripe?”
Linford nodded. “Of course. It’s canned in Jamaica and approved for import by the FDA. It has to be processed correctly. Ackee can be poisonous, otherwise.”
Esther swallowed hard and stared at her food.
“I actually prefer fresh ackee with this particular dish,” Linford told me. “But the fruit is only harvested in the warmer months.”
The ackee fruit had the consistency of scrambled eggs; the fish was firm and resembled the Italian variety of dried codfish called baccala—something I ate as a child, but frankly didn’t miss (an inevitable truth of life: Not every foodie memory is a good foodie memory). Apparently, Esther agreed.
“This reminds me of dag maluah,” she said. “That’s Jewish saltfish.” Then she gave me a private look that said, This sort of stuff is vile in any language.
Luckily, Linford served the saltfish dish with freshly baked hard dough bread and boiled bananas on the side. (I thought at first they were plantains, but Linford informed me that boiled green bananas were also a traditional pairing. The fruit was boiled in its own skin with the tips and sides sliced to make peeling easier after cooking.) Then Linford dug in and so did I. Esther pushed the fish to the side of her plate and ate the bananas and bread—both of which were quite good.
As the conversation lulled, I cleared my throat. “Speaking of ackee, Mr. Linford—”
“Call me Omar, Clare. We have a mutual friend, which makes us friends, too, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, of course. And I understand our friend, Dexter Beatty, purchases import items from you?”
Linford sat back in his chair. “From my company, yes. You are here seeking a purveyor of Caribbean foods for your store, aren’t you? Dexter told me you had questions for me about my Blue Sunshine company. It’s a very reliable source, as Dexter can attest.”
“Actually, I had the impression that you and Dexter were involved in a number of business deals.”
“Dexter and I do have a private arrangement, Clare.”
“Importing and exporting?”
“Surely you’re not here to invade our friend’s privacy. If Dexter wanted you to know what he and I were doing together, he would have told you himself.”
“I’m here, Mr. Linford, to talk about another one of your business ventures. One that wasn’t so profitable.”
Linford’s smile began to slip away. “You’re referring to?”
“Alfred Glockner.”
Linford exhaled. An expression of relief appeared to cross his face, like he’d just dodged a bullet—which made me suspicious of Vickie’s “shady” sobriquet all over again.
He cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to be rude, but how in the world would my private dealings with the late Mr. Glockner concern you?”
“I was Mr. Glockner’s friend. After his murder, someone close to Alf asked me to... step in and investigate.”
“You must be referring to the money I loaned to Mr. Glockner.”
I nodded. “Money he never paid back.”
Linford met my eyes. “Let me begin, Clare, by assuring you that Alfred was my friend, too, and that not all of my investments are profitable. Quite frankly, in Alf’s case, I suspected I would never see a return on my outlay.”
That surprised me. “If you wanted to help Alf, why make it a loan? Why didn’t you simply give him the money?”
“I don’t operate that way, Ms. Cosi. My charitable donations are always made with tax deductions in mind, and Alf’s business wasn’t a charity. At the time, you must understand, the loan to Alf made sound business sense.”
“How sound was it, if you lost the money?”
Linford smiled—a bit tightly this time. “You’re very direct. Dex warned me that you would be. Let’s say I had my reasons for lending Alf a hand.”
“Such as?”
“The same reason I’m in a business relationship with our friend Dexter: to keep my profile high in a community of people from whom I draw hedge fund investors. This community on Staten Island, Alf’s community, has changed over the years. But it wasn’t always so inviting to someone of mixed race.”
“What do you mean exactly?”
“Alf’s steakhouse catered to a wealthy, mostly white clientele, and I used it for networking, a place to connect with my well-heeled neighbors. Everyone in the community loved and respected a born-and-raised Staten Islander like Alf, and I hoped he could open a few doors for me. I also hoped Alf could keep his business going, but in these hard times, that proved impossible. And the shambles the poor man made of his personal life didn’t help.”
“Alf told me about his separation and pending divorce.”
“Did you know about his drinking?” Linford shook his head. “One morning, near the end of his marriage, I found Alf passed out in my driveway. Alf was so drunk Shelly—his wife—locked him out. He tried to come over here for a place to sleep, which I would have happily provided, but he never made it to the front door. My son, Dwayne, nearly ran him over coming home from one of those disc jockey club jobs of his.”
From the stories Linford told, I learned that Alf Glockner wasn’t just a failed restaurateur. He’d always been a borderline alcoholic who’d spiraled into dysfunction after his restaurant went belly-up. As the drinking intensified, Alf’s marriage disintegrated. The man finally hit bottom, ending up in a hospital with acute alcohol poisoning.
“I visited Alf there and met another man,” Linford said. “A high school chum, Karl Kovic is his name. Alf moved in with Karl, and shortly after, Karl got him involved with that Santa Claus thing in Manhattan—”
“The Traveling Santas.” I made a mental note to question Karl, see what he could tell me.
“I thought Alf was well on the road to recovery,” Linford continued, “until I received a rather disturbing letter from him a couple of weeks ago.”
“Alf wrote you a letter?”
“He didn’t sign it, but I know it came from him,” Linford said, his face taut.
“What did the letter say?”
“Say?” Linford shook his head, his expression looking almost pained. “It was a threat, Clare—Alf’s clumsy attempt at blackmail.”
“You’re joking.”
“I never joke about blackmail. The note demanded I forgive the debt completely—as an early ‘holiday’ gift. I was also to come up with fifty thousand more dollars by Christmas in exchange for his silence about alleged unlawful activities—”
“About your investments?”
“The allegations were not about me,” Linford said, mouth tight. “The letter suggested my son was involved in criminal activities.”
“What activities?”
Linford shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. The claims were all lies.”
Hard to believe after my encounter with the kid driving the tricked-out gangsta ride. But then Omar Linford wouldn’t be the first parent who’d blinded himself to his offspring’s malfeasance.
“Do the police have the letter now?” I asked.
Linford shook his head. “I didn’t want to get Alf into trouble, so I never alerted the authorities.”
“I see,” I said, but the claim only made me more suspicious.
“Alf was a good man at heart.” Linford held my eyes. “And the letter made no sense. I mean, Alf was the one who insisted on paying me back in the first place.”
“He was paying you back, then?”
“Not much—a thousand or so one week, a few hundred another. Out of respect for his pride, I took the money. I decided he must have written that letter on a bad night—probably he’d slipped and started drinking again, or he was feeling embittered and helpless. I’d planned to talk with Alf about it. My goal was to resolve the matter without bringing in the police. Then, when I read the terrible news about his death, I filed away the whole affair.”