"Will that be all, Ma'am?" Yancy wanted to know.
He was a slight young man with a well-scrubbed face and dark, collar-dusting brown hair moussed into an oddly antique-looking pompadour.
"For now," Temple said grimly.
She sat on the desk chair and rolled it across the plastic carpet-protector until she could rest her elbows atop the slick glass surface and absently sip coffee.
Zillions of fine blue lines zigged and zagged across the plans expansive surface. She had enough sheets here to paper her condominium, if living inside the veins of someone else's walls appealed to her.
Hearing the door shut, she glanced up. Yancy was gone. She was alone with her secret treasure maps at last. Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum-flavored continental coffee.
**************
"Here they are, dearest dumpling."
Danny Dove had knocked before entering. Temple wasn't sure exactly what with. Both arms were loaded with sheaves of coffee-stained papers. But, after all, he was a toe- and tap-dancer, so he must be digitally dexterous with all limbs.
"An office to die for," he said with a melting look around.
"Not in, I hope."
"Of course not. You're far too important to knock off now."
"How can we--I--rewrite these skits at such a late date? Won't the performers go crazy if they have to relearn changes?"
"They would go crazier delivering Mr. Buchanan's garbage to an audience. Most of this mess"--Danny dumped the lot atop the desk as if unburdening himself of rubbish--"is salvageable with some editing and a modicum of real wit."
"I happen to have my modicum right here with me." Smiling, Temple reached into the ever-ready tote bag sitting at her feet.
Danny watched het extract a blue fine-line ballpoint pen, then eyed the tablecloth of architectural plans beneath the precious but putrid scripts.
''Riveting," he said. ''Architects and editors always use blue pencils, or pens. It must mean something."
"They are probably just depressed. Looking over these skits, I can see why. Crawford's only funny bone is in his left elbow."
"Too bad he didn't dive down those steps and break it."
"There haven't been any more rehearsal accidents?" Temple asked anxiously.
"Not since you've taken all the sunshine and yourself away."
"Hmm."
Danny braced his hands on the curling edges of the architectural plans and leaned forward for emphasis, reminding Temple of Michael Caine in one of his spy films. "Listen, ducks. I don't know what's going on around this hotel, but it's not normal. Watch yourself, love."
"Oh, I will," Temple promised. "I will."
Danny nodded and bounded, Gene Kelly style, to the door and out it.
By mid-afternoon Yancy had run the edited skits through the handy-dandy full-page scanner in the corner--nothing but class for the Crystal Phoenix, even in the office furnishings department.
Her blue pencil busily checked off skits that were already read into the computer memory.
Now she could correct the blue screen of the color monitor, sharpening Crawford's dull wit and lopping off leaden lines, adding her own impromptu spin. He would be furious, but she was having fun. Such nice, messy raw material he provided! Temple loved operating on club-footed prose.
She was so busy she hadn't even noticed when the office door opened.
But it must have opened, because Midnight Louie was now serving as the fourth corner paperweight on the plans, his black muzzle nestled deeply into the toe of her red shoe.
She noticed him with a start, then saw that the door had been nosed ajar. Apparently the secretary was off secretaring.
''Glad to know you're alive," she told him. ''I guess you're sorry you ever moved to the Circle Ritz. If you miss my shoes so much, I can leave a pair with Van von Rhine for your future delectation."
But the cat was not about to go quietly on a guilt trip of Temple's making. He yawned and rolled over to display his impressive underbelly. Temple gave the black fur a good scratch and also tickled his chin for good measure.
''We both have been spending a lot of time at the Crystal Phoenix," she admitted aloud. "I hope your sojourn has been less traumatic than mine."
At that Louie blinked solemnly, as if to sympathize.
He stretched out a fat paw and patted the curled corners of the hotel plans.
"No messing with the floor plans, fellah. I haven't even had time to look at them yet."
Temple turned back to her computer. She was in the process of integrating Crawford's tasteless "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" number into her grand finale. Her remodeling would require a new wardrobe of complicated costumes, but the effect would be socko. Shocko!
Boffo! Psycho! Danny Dove wouldn't mind. After all, she wasn't kicking the Lace 'n' Lust ladies out of the show, she was simply giving them a whole new platform, a fresh facade, a free facelift, so to speak.
She snickered wickedly, Crawford would be finger-flaunting furious.
Her office door cracked open, hitting the wall. The sudden inrush of air sucked the papers on her desk into rustling rearrangement.
Temple spun to face the door and found a brace of Fontana brothers frozen in an action pose worthy of a movie poster, guns in hand.
She decided not to hit the floor. People with glass-topped desks have nowhere to hide.
"We saw your door was ajar and suspected an invader." the nearest brother explained, eyeing the empty office with displeasure.
"Just something the cat let in . . . the cat.''
She pointed to Midnight Louie, still hunkered atop the crinkled pile of hotel plans, his significant overweight the only thing that had kept the whole shebang from scattering. Her shoes lay at opposite corners of the desk. Paperclips glinted everywhere like solid silver rain.
''Sorry, Miss Barr," Ralph offered lamely, ''We thought that crack in the door was suspicious." He bolstered his semiautomatic and bent to join his brother in picking up the pieces.
"Kinda wrinkled," said the other brother, probably Julio, as he plopped the disheveled pile of Crawford's scripts back on the desk.
"Hey, our suits will be fine with a fresh pressing," Ralph said. "That's nothing compared to making a mess for Miss Barr. You don't have to mention this to anybody, do you? We'd look a little . . . trigger-happy."
"I appreciate the protection, but right now I could really use some peace and quiet while I work."
They left, drawing the door shut so slowly and quietly that it took twenty seconds to close it.
Temple counted.
She sighed and regarded Midnight Louie, who was stretching luxuriously on his favorite snoozing surface--papers. Architectural plans were almost roomy enough to accommodate his full length.
He began pulling up the corners to construct a nest.
"Enough. You're as awkward as a Fontana brother doing flying tackles. You're as clumsy as a kitten up a tree, and it isn't even spring. Oops. I've been writing too many song satires lately. Get off the papers; they're bent out of shape enough already!"
Temple shoved Louie's lolling weight aside and tried to stack the plans like a giant deck of cards, but the sheets were too battered to push meekly into one pat pile.
Then she saw the problem: they weren't single sheets, but pairs, stapled together at the upper left corner. No wonder they were so cumbersome.
She stripped off the first pair and held them up in her arms, which barely stretched from edge to edge.
The top sheet showed the remodeled Crystal Phoenix entrance and lobby, complete to a small square indicated dead-center. That must represent the Plexiglas plinth that upheld the gorgeous Lalique glass sculpture of a phoenix.
She struggled to flip over the huge page so she could see the next drawing.
Not much to see. More marshaled lines going every which way in rectilinear precision, like Mondrian in a blue period. Except that ...