Stanley Abbott: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 30, No. 13, Mid-December, 1985

“An offer of bribery is even stupider than trying to cheat us,” Nygaard said, his fjord-blue eyes taking on a frosty paleness. He picked up the money and put it in his pocket for later distribution. “You’re leaving all right,” he added, “and I want to make sure you never come back.” The ambiguity of this statement reduced Fields to a frightened silence.

“Thor, for Pete’s sake, you can’t bring him in here!” hissed Balstad. “For one things he hasn’t got a ticket! And for another, he isn’t Norwegian!”

“Hush up, Mark, okay? He’s my guest. We’re allowed to bring a guest to a lodge dinner, aren’t we? And since Judy’s working in the kitchen tonight, I’m bringing my buddy Mr. Fields along.” He grinned down at the man, large teeth shining, “It’ll give me more time to think of something mean, appropriate, and maybe even legal.”

Fields had given up arguing. He looked tired and a little depressed; even the diamond in his ring seemed dim. Nygaard had taken him to his home and handcuffed him to the refrigerator while showering and changing, and driven him to the lodge hall at a rate of speed Fields had privately considered far too fast for road conditions. Nygaard was now acting more out of stubbornness than anger, Fields knew. But Fields recalled the look in the big man’s eye when he offered the bribe, and did not care to inadvertently rekindle that look.

The elevator door slid open, and the smell of something warm and damp rolled in.

“What the hell is that?” said Fields, hanging back.

“What?” asked Nygaard, pulling him out of the elevator.

“That smell.”

“What smell?”

“It’s lutefisk,” said Balstad, uncovering his curls as if in a gesture of respect. He inhaled greedily. “Torsk.”

“Torsk?”

“That’s Norwegian for cod.”

“Come on, this way,” said Nygaard impatiently. He led them down a hallway to a door guarded by a pleasant-faced woman counting dollar bills and putting rubber bands around little stacks of them.

“Well, hello, Thor Nygaard,” she said. “I was wondering if you’d get here on time.” There was an odd lilt in her voice, as if it were carried on little waves.

“Inga, how could I not be here, knowing you’d be at the door to greet me?” He showed her a yellow pasteboard ticket.

She blushed and waved dismissively at him. “Go on with you,” she said. “And save that for the drawing next week.”

“Any tickets left?”

She looked in her metal box. “Yes, three or four.”

“Good, my friend wants some real old fashioned Norwegian food.”

Nygaard nudged Fields, who reached for his wallet. “How much?” he asked.

“Seven dollars and fifty cents,” she said. He paid her, and was rewarded with a yellow ticket. “What’s your last name?” she asked curiously.

“Fields.”

“Oh, then it’s your mother who’s from Norway?”

“No — uh, yes,” he amended, as he felt another massive nudge. “Uh — Johannsen was her name.”

She frowned. “Johannsen is Swedish, isn’t it?”

“Uh, yeah, but they moved to Norway before she was born.”

“Ah, then welcome to Tofte Lodge,” she smiled, and handed him his change.

“Thank you,” said Fields.

The room was crowded with people, many of them tall, most of them fair, quite a few carrying frosty glasses that tinkled refreshingly. Fields noticed a bar in the corner. “I could use a drink,” he hinted, but Nygaard was looking for familiar faces, and greeting them with waves and grins.

A big man with a huge red mustache confronted Nygaard and said belligerently through a haze of whisky fumes, “I hear we’re gonna have to discontinue our 911 emergency phone number.”

“Why’s that, Sven?” asked Nygaard.

“ ’Cause none of us Norwegians can find eleven on the dial!”

Fields braced himself for an explosion, but when it came, it was laughter. Thor slapped the man on his shoulder and shouted, “Haw, haw, haw! I’ll have to remember that one!” He nudged Fields, who gave an obliging and puzzled chuckle.

A very proper looking young woman came by and told a surprisingly raunchy joke involving Ole and Lena, which again insulted Norwegians. And again Nygaard laughed his big laugh.

Fields waited until the young woman went away, and asked, “If you’re all Norwegians, how come you’re not telling German jokes? Or whatever.”

“Danish jokes,” said Nygaard. “Sometimes we tell Danish jokes. But mostly we tell jokes on ourselves.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Well, we’d tell Polish jokes,” said Nygaard, “except we don’t understand them.” And he laughed his great haw, haw, haw. Still grinning, Nygaard looked down at Fields. “You know, you look sorta like a guy the police in International Falls are looking for. Maybe I should keep you down at the jail until they can come check it out, which could take four or five days if the snow keeps up like the weatherman says it might. That would be legal.”

Fields ventured a suggestion that that might constitute false arrest.

“Naw, more like mistaken identity, I think. Of course, on the other hand, if Tommy Olson has to come all the way down here on a false alarm, he’s gonna be mad at me. And if he stays mad, he might not let me use his cabin in the Boundary Waters next summer. And what would I do if I couldn’t fish for walleyes in the Boundary Waters?” With a massive, regretful sigh, Nygaard dropped that idea. He renewed his grip on the unfortunate gambler’s arm, and they worked their way slowly toward the double doors at the back of the reception area. The smell of something that had been forcibly removed from the sea, and cruelly treated besides, grew stronger.

Fields murmured apologetically, “I really don’t much care for fish.” As if in sympathy, a low moaning sound filled the room and stilled all conversation.

“There goes the lur-horn,” said Nygaard happily. “Let’s eat!”

The dining hall was very large, and its two longer walls were lined with thin horizontal slats of wood that curved upwards at one end, giving the impression the room was inside an enormous longboat. Several dozen tables covered with white paper tablecloths filled the floor. On an unslatted wall straight ahead was a big American flag flanked by two Norwegian flags, which in turn were flanked by murderous-looking battle-axes crossed behind brass-knobbed shields.

“Everybody in town must be Norwegian, to support a place this big,” said Fields.

“Yeah, there’s a lot of us all right,” said Nygaard, leading Fields to a table near the front. “Say, do you sell snowmobile suits?”

“No, of course not!”

“Then what are you doing in Minnesota? Snowmobile suits are practically a winter uniform up here. What kind of a sporting goods company do you work for, anyhow?”

“A very good sporting goods company.” Fields smelled — in addition to the fish — another of Nygaard’s screwball plans in the making. “Are you in the market for a snowmobile suit?”

“No, I got one. But you spoiled my next plan. I was thinking, suppose your luggage accidentally got mixed up with someone else’s? And it got put on the bus Valhalla runs up to the Twin Cities international airport. And ended up in, say, Cancun, Mexico? You might be grateful for a snowmobile suit to wear until the airline got your luggage back.”

“How would you get hold of my luggage without breaking into my hotel room? The management might not think much of that. They might put a lot of pressure on the police department to solve the burglary.”

“Yeah, they might at that,” said Nygaard, and Fields offered an inaudible sigh of relief.

They took seats at a table set for six with white china plates and thick coffee mugs. The smell of fish was now very strong indeed. Nygaard waved an arm over his head, and they were joined by Judge Draxten and his wife, a tiny lady with grey eyes and hair.