“That’s Wilfreda,” Big Abe informed Oswell. “She’s a treasure in this town.”
“She plays very well.”
Dicky nodded. “Quite violently.”
“You haven’t seen a thing,” said the proprietor. “She’s toying with us right now. Inveigling us.”
Fingering a sinister bass line on the left side of the instrument, Wilfreda raised her right hand over her head and slammed it to the keys. Seduced by these vibrations, formerly inert feet began to tap the floor.
Wilfreda turned to look over her left shoulder, revealing the pure white hair that was compressed by her flat, crescent-shaped hat. Beneath colorless eyebrows that looked like caterpillars, her narrow eyes assessed the crowd with a gaze that Oswell considered malefic. The crone grinned while her percolating left hand supplied an ever-changing rhythm
