The Dark Hotel (Part 4)

The Grey Boy. At first, Gesson pointedly pretended not to hear.
Of all of the men in the Bureau, why had he been assigned to investigate the Grey Boy? Gesson retroactively detected a hint of gloating in Bakermitt’s tone. Why was that large and balding man so gruff toward him, so lacking in the respectful tone and demeanor one expected of a seasoned Bureau official?
“Why wasn’t I given the Grey Boy dossier?” he asked Bakermitt, the columnar hotel phone feeling foreign and geological in his hand, like a cold and unfriendly underground rock formation that some freakish gnome had shoved in his hand.
Bakermitt laughed again, his laugh sounding dismissive and caustic, the laugh of a man who would shove his way through a crowd at a gaudy candy store to grab the last blueberry taffy stick for himself. But then, Gesson doubted if Bakermitt was the kind of man who had ever even tasted a blueberry taffy stick.
“The Grey Boy. So elusive. And yet here I am without a dossier.” Gesson sounded sullen, his shoulders slumping in his overcoat.
Bakermitt immediately took on a business-like tone, without a trace of his former false amiability. He was suddenly frigid, like a hunk of potato salad left in the freezer by mistake. “You’ve been in the Bureau over a decade, Gesson. Do you really think a dossier will help you deal with the Grey Boy? It’s time you turned into a man of your own age. We’ve done half of the work for you. You’re at the Dark Hotel.”
“You know the Grey Boy’s in the hotel?”
Bakermitt was silent for an interval, an interval in which a repulsive worm could have wriggled over a crack in a wet sidewalk. “We have an informant in the hotel.”
“And he’s told you the Grey Boy is here?”
Gesson heard a sultry woman’s laugh come from somewhere in the background on the other end of the line.
“I won’t do all of your work for you, Gesson.” There was a trite click and then silence.
Gesson was left alone in the Dark Hotel room, with the sounds of the creatures under the bed again skittering into his hearing.