Unfinished Business

Chapter Three

Except for the bright yellow paisley-patterned sari, Thorvald Larson looked every inch the ancient Viking, from the flowing golden hair and beard to the knotted muscles of his biceps. Of course, Thorvald had never seen an ocean of any sort, but he would have looked perfectly natural on the deck of a longship, peering through the mists at an unsuspecting village. He used his size and overbearing manner as a business advantage, much as his Scandinavian ancestors had, by intimidating – sometimes accidentally – clients and vendors into better deals. Since most of his deals were clandestine, it also kept the number of disagreements to a minimum.

Thorvald ran the warehouse block near the frozen port at Valhalla’s tiny mountainous capital, Bifrost. As such, he also ran the smuggling operations that kept the two Alliance inspectors away from contraband goods. As both of them were brothers-in-law, he had a pretty stable operation, and one utterly without competition. It was all too easy for him to sic his brothers-in-law on them than it was to indulge in using muscle.

Most other men who enjoyed that kind of power in the demimonde would have abused it, gotten greedy and made enemies. Not Thorvald. He liked people, generally, and was expressive and generous to a fault, displaying Scandinavian hospitality with the expansiveness of a Texan. He used that, too, to his business advantage. When smugglers had a good, reliable drop and a ready market, they were more inclined to bring their trade to him, and return if they were well treated. Thorvald would rather make friends than enemies, he declared over and over again during the meeting, and he went out of way to prove it.

“Caviar? My cousin Rori sends me some from New Melbourne, sometimes,”

“Gives me gas,” Mal admitted.

“Then herring – Rori’s wife Linda makes the best pickled herring, you must take some home!” he insisted.

“I’m partial to herring,” agreed Mal, knowing from personal experience that the caviar would