“Why should I help you?” she says. “I don’t agree with what Muerte did to you, and I’m sorry it happened. Lucy shouldn’t have been killed. But you’re siding with Mictlantecuhtli. We both know that. I won’t help you kill Santa Muerte for revenge.”
“No, you’ll just use me as a convenient fall guy for her plan to fix Mictlan.”
“Yes,” she says. “I will. It’s important. And I won’t let you jeopardize that by murdering her.”
“Just because I don’t want her looking over my shoulder doesn’t mean I’m going to kill her.” She arches an eyebrow at me. “Okay, fine. Yes, I’m going to kill her. But I’m going to kill Mictlantecuhtli, too. She wants that, right? So if you get me in there, I promise I’ll go after him first.” Not a difficult thing to promise. I’m already planning on doing that.
She runs her hands over the red, leather seat of the Caddy, the cracked dashboard. “You haven’t taken very good care of this thing.”
“It was sitting in the land of the dead for a year. Don’t change the subject.”
“Yeah, sitting over there would do it.” She traces her fingers across the windshield. “Wards on the glass kept the worst of it out, then?”
“More or less.”
“Must have been a pain in the ass getting it back.”
“It was. Took forever to find it. Somebody put a shipping container over it on the living side. I had to push the goddamn thing twenty feet before I could bring it over. At least I finally got all my stuff back.”
“You’re determined.”
“Stubborn as a bulldog.”
“I was going to go with jackass, but sure. Even if you kill Mictlantecuhtli you’re still going to try killing Santa Muerte.”
“But if you come with me maybe you’ll be able to stop me.”
I knew there was no way to convince her that I was on the up and up. The cuffs allow for a certain amount of compulsion. It’s what they’re designed for after all. She won’t want to get too far away from me.
So I figure if I give her the thing she wants, Mictlantecuhtli dead, and dangle the opportunity to keep me from doing the same to Santa Muerte in front of her, maybe she’ll bite. She thinks about it, fingers tapping against her legs.
“And if I don’t, you’re stubborn enough to find another way to do it.” She lets out a sigh and shakes her head. “I’m so going to regret this. Isla de las Mu?ecas. South of here in the canals of Xochimilco.”
“Island of the Dolls? Sounds creepy.”
“Heh. Yeah, that’s a word for it.”
The sun is setting by the time we get out of the more modern parts of the city center and into Xochimilco. A deep orange glow in the western sky fades into blue.
Things change fast here. Fifteen minutes ago we passed a modern football stadium. Now we’re in a dense sprawl of narrow, potholed streets, weathered cinderblock buildings.
As Tabitha directs me through the winding streets, barely more than alleys, the cinderblock sprawl gives way to canals where ramshackle huts and small gardens share space with strawberry trees, squat tepozanes, massive Montezuma cypresses and ocotes. The air smells green and swampy, the only sound the thrumming of the Eldorado’s V-8.
“So, what, is there a bridge or something to get to this island?” For a short bit we parallel one of the canals, a wide, dark green river of slow moving water. Brightly painted trajineras, tourist gondolas for lazing down the canal, are heading back to their docks. Boats with vendors selling food and drinks aren’t far behind them.
“Nope,” she says. “Take a left there and park the car. You’ll have to leave the Caddy here.” I do as she says, stopping at a dirt track that heads toward a small dock at the edge of the water. A small dinghy is tied up at the end of it.
“You’re kidding me.”
“It’s that or swim. Come on.” She gets out of the car. I grab my messenger bag out of the back seat, get out, pop the trunk to retrieve the Benelli. Tabitha stares at me as I come down to the dock slinging the shotgun over my shoulder.
“What the hell do you think you’re going to do with that?” she says. “Everybody in there is already dead.”
“Better to have a shotgun and not need it, than to need a shotgun and not have it.” She shakes her head and unties the boat as I get in and grab the oars.
“All right, which way?”
“Just follow the current. You’ll know when you get there.”
She pushes us off and I row down the canal. No sound but the water lapping against the boat, the buzz of insects. The night comes on quickly and soon we’re traveling in almost complete darkness, the only light coming from the shacks on the shore.
Is she leading me into a trap? And what would that even be? She’s not going to try to kill me. Run away? She won’t get far with the cuff on her hand. The only thing I can think of is that she’ll somehow contact Santa Muerte before I can stop her and tell her where I am and what I’m doing.