The minion is not in the place where the minion used to be, which is to say, within the confines of this surely condemnable shed where both Beans and lothario Loudermilk now find themselves, though of course mythomaniac Loudermilk can have no suspicion of the presence of a sleuthing Beans. Beans was surprised mid-snoop by the precipitous return of his devious colleague. The place isn’t really safe enough to have multiple exits. Beans had hoped—foolishly, he now sees—that by venturing into Loudermilk’s man lair he’d be able to find some trace indicating where it is Loudermilk has sequestered his little friend, who is clearly the true author within their arrangement. Loudermilk’s own bizarre, noisy attempts to “write” have convinced Beans that Loudermilk is, very definitely, not the poet. And not only this: he is impure. He’s writing, the philistine!, prose. Though of course Beans hasn’t found any material proof of the former presence of the minion. There have been no clues, no letters with forwarding addresses, no farewell notes, no forgotten belongings, nothing that appears to have touched the little guy. It’s tabula rasa. Loudermilk, for all his campy bro displays, is no fool. His cleverness may mostly be unconscious but it is, sadly, very, very real. This won’t be an easy case.

Beans is about to sigh, but instead of sighing he catches his breath. Loudermilk’s heels have stopped tapping. The laughing and the whispers and the scratching of the pen have ceased. Beans hears what Loudermilk hears, which is a rapping, as of someone gently tapping, tapping at the shack’s front door.

“Harumph!” says Loudermilk, in an anachronistic sonic frown. He shoves back his chair, pads off.

Beans recognizes that this is his chance. Could he crawl out a window? Beans reflects gloomily that if he departs now he will do so without the information he has come to this cramped den of ambiguous iniquity to obtain. Also, he will exit with an antique prophylactic cemented to his head by what is surely the nonmetaphorical cement of Loudermilk’s spermatozoa. It will be, to say the least, demoralizing. Beans may never again have the emotional wherewithal to probe Loudermilk’s treachery. Loudermilk may—if Beans leaves him to his project now—get away with it.

This cannot be permitted. Certainly not at Marta’s school.

Anton Beans mentally reassumes the position.

He hears another voice. It isn’t, all too predictably for what seems to be Beans’s inordinately poor luck regarding all things Loudermilk, the minion. It’s a female. At first Beans hears tone rather than discrete words. It seems like she’s building up to something? They draw nigh to the door of Loudermilk’s boudoir/writing atelier.

A girl says, “It’s very you.”

“That’s not so unusual. Now what was it you wanted?”