Dim Sum Dead Read Online Free

box.
    And when I found myself at the very end of the Third Street Promenade, all the way south, near the entrance to Santa Monica Place shopping mall, I stopped. I had been running around in circles for fifteen minutes, and running pretty hard.
    I leaned over, hands on my knees, and gulped some air. My ankle hurt. In all my racing around, I hadn’t seen Wesley, who I was sure must be halfway back to the house by then, unaware of this disaster. I was no longer chilled. My long hair was still pulled back in a braid, but now several stubborn wisps had pulled free and were curling up around my face.
    “Madeline?”
    Silently, Officer Stubb had glided to a stop beside me.
    “Officer?”
    I was waiting for my breath to slow down a bit and didn’t look up directly.
    “We’ve got everyone on it, but the fact is, we seem to have lost your man.”
    I nodded, head still bent over.
    “We’ll keep looking. I’ll write up a report. You’ll need it for insurance, that sort of thing.”
    When the nice cop starts giving you advice about insurance, you can pretty much kiss your stolen possessions good-bye.
    “Okay. Thanks anyway.” I stood up. “You want me to spell mah-jongg for your report?”
    “That’s a good idea. And I’m going to need a way to contact you.”
    “Right.” In case they found my box? I wasn’t holding my breath. I wrote down “mah-jongg” on one of my business cards and handed it to him. He thanked me again and pedaled away.
    Well, that was that.
    I had left my car parked in the oceanside parking structure, which I realized I could reach by cutting through the mall. I pulled open the glass entrance door and walked into Santa Monica Place.
    The trilevel skylit galleria was designed by architect Frank Gehry. Like most of L.A.’s landmarks, Santa Monica Place looks familiar to out-of-towners. It was the mall in Terminator II and was often seen on Beverly Hills 90210. Yes, I’m afraid even our shopping plazas have screen credits. I checked my watch—twenty past ten. The large shoppingmall had just opened for business.
    I stopped inside the entrance and flipped open my cell phone. I had to tell Wesley the bad news sometime.
    “Wes here,” he said. That’s his phone schtick. I liked it, so businessman and cordial.
    “Madeline here,” I replied. “I’m still in Santa Monica.”
    “Whazzup?” He said it in that disgusting, guttural slangy way that had become popular in a series of beer commercials. We are annoying in this way. We pick up on every fad and buzzword and insist on torturing each other with them. Yes, we are cruel.
    “Whazzup?” I said back, being as obnoxious as he was. “Wes, get ready for a big fat horrible story.” I was standing near a large planter in the mall.
    “What’s up?” he asked, his voice instantly full of concern.
    I told him the tale.
    “So that’s it?” Wes asked when I finished. “Your cute bike cop didn’t come through?”
    “I wish Stubb hadn’t stopped me, Wes. I was this close to grabbing the guy.” Okay, slight exaggeration. “And I recognized the son of a bitch.”
    “You did? What do you mean?”
    “That guy fingering the chard—did you notice that guy? At Maria’s stand. What was his problem?”
    And as I was venting and generally acting cranky, standing just inside the mall entrance with shoppers flowing by in ones and twos, I looked up. And there he was. The son of a bitch. He was walking out of Robinsons-May, holding something bulky in a large navy blue Robinsons-May shopping bag.
    “Wesley, Wesley, Wesley,” I hissed rapidly into the phone, interrupting whatever he was saying. “It’s him.” He was only about a hundred feet away, walking deeper into the mall, away from where I stood.
    “Call the cops.” Wes had that stern sound I rarely hear.
    “Call you back,” I said, and clicked off.
    I followed the chard guy, but it was easy this time. The mall was hardly busy this early in the morning. And, even better, the chard guy