Hurt Machine by Reed Farrel Coleman

grass, but with some curves, and her makeup was flawless. A model or actress who, I guessed, hadn’t come to New York to work behind a bar.
    “Excuse me, sir,” she said, “what may I get for you?”
    I showed her my old badge and put it away before she could get a good look at it. Her youth worked in my favor because she would focus on the badge and what it represented, not on me or my age.
    “A glass of sparkling water and lime and five minutes of your time.”
    She looked around the bar for any excuse to get away from me, but I was her sole customer.
    “Look,” I said, “what’s your name?”
    “Esme.”
    “Look, Esme, relax. Just get me the sparkling water and talk to me like I was any older man sitting at the bar hitting on you. I’m sure you’re pretty used to it.”
    She smiled at that and what a smile: welcoming, sexy, shy, and warm all at once. I couldn’t imagine a camera not loving her. She used the bar gun to fill a tall glass, clipped a lime wedge over the rim, and placed it in front of me.
    “What do you do, Esme, I mean besides tend bar? Actress? Model?”
    There was that smile again. “Some of both, but I am a senior at SVA, the School of Visual Arts.”
    “Really? What’s your major?”
    “Film,” she said, seeming to be more relaxed.
    I squeezed the lime, raised the glass to her, and sipped. “Thanks. Were you here in March when Robert Tillman died?”
    She wasn’t smiling anymore. She looked gut-punched, in fact. “Yes.”
    “Can you tell me what happened?”
    “I can’t tell you very much because I was behind the bar here. It all happened over there around the other side of the bar by the kitchen entrance,” she said, her head looking down.
    “Did you see the EMTs come in?”
    “Yes, I noticed them right away.”
    “Why would you notice them? Hadn’t they ever been in here for lunch before?”
    Esme, still looking down. “No. We do not get many customers like them at the High Line.”
    I played dumb. “Why not?”
    She held the menu out to me. “I make good money and I get a discount and even I cannot afford food here. And each meal is always cooked to order by Chef Liu. People do not come here for a fast lunch.”
    “But even if you didn’t see what happened yourself, people who work here must have talked. What did you hear about what happened?”
    “People talked, yes.”
    “Come on, Esme, don’t make this like pulling teeth. Just tell me.”
    “The EMTs came in and everyone says they were having an argument.”
    “An argument. An argument about what?”
    “No one said.”
    “Okay, so they were arguing. Where did they go after they came in?”
    “Toward the restrooms,” Esme said, again pointing around the bar to her right. “Then as they were passing the kitchen door, Chef Liu came out of the kitchen screaming for a doctor and for the hostess to call 911. The short EMT looked into the kitchen and saw Rob—him on the floor. The tall one, she ran into the bathroom and the other one told the chef to call 911, that they were off duty and couldn’t help. When the tall one came out of the bathroom, they left.”
    “You said the short EMT looked into the kitchen. Which one was the short one?”
    “The heavier, older woman. The one who was murdered.”
    “Alta Conseco?”
    “If that is her name, yes, that one.”
    “You said she looked into the kitchen. Did she go into the kitchen or just look?” I asked.
    “I did not see for myself.”
    “I know, Esme, but what did the others say?”
    “She just looked at him through the open kitchen door.”
    “That’s it? She didn’t touch him or anything?”
    “That is what I was told. She just left him to die on the dirty kitchen tiles.”
    Except for the argument between Alta and Maya, Esme’s hearsay story pretty much fell into line with the witness statements. I took out a list of names I’d scrawled down before leaving the house. The names were of other restaurant employees who’d given statements to the