The seconds swept by. Ke-teeli was casting his razor-edged glare in our direction. I brushed the chewed finger nails from the keyboard of my electronic piano.
Then it happened.
From the entrance of The Space Room came a thumping and a grating and a banging. Suddenly, sweeping across the dance floor like a cold wind, was a bass fiddle, an enormous black monstrosity, a refugee from a pawnbroker's attic. It was queerly shaped. It was too tall, too wide. It was more like a monstrous, midnight-black hour-glass than a bass.
The fiddle was not unaccompanied as I'd first imagined. Behind it, streaking over the floor in a waltz of agony, was a little guy, an animated matchstick with a flat, broad face that seemed to have been compressed in a vice. His sandcolored mop of hair reminded me of a field of dry grass, the long strands forming loops that flanked the sides of his face.
His pale blue eyes were watery, like twin pools of fog. His tightfitting suit, as black as the bass, was something off a park bench. It was impossible to guess his age. He could have been anywhere between twenty and forty.
The bass thumped down upon the bandstand.
"Hello," he puffed. "I'm John Smith, from the Marsport union." He spoke shrilly and rapidly, as if anxious to conclude the routine of introductions. "I'm sorry I'm late, but I was working on my plan."
A moment's silence.
"Your plan?" I echoed at last.