Read Inspector Zhang and the Disappearing Drugs for Free Online Page B

expression for it.
    Jai yen.
    Cool heart.
    Don't worry.
    Be happy.
    Sometimes, for emphasis, they say jai yen yen .
    Real cool heart.
    I settled back in my seat and turned to the letters page of the Bangkok Post. A reader in Chiang Mai was complaining about the air quality. The farmers around the city were carrying out their annual field burnings and the mayor had warned the population to stay indoors with their windows closed. A Manchester City fan was complaining that he could only get a Thai commentary for his team's last match. A reader in Bangkok was complaining about his erratic cable wi-fi service. For many people Thailand was the Land Of Smiles, but the average Bangkok Post reader seemed to spend most of his time complaining about the state of the country.
    The fruit vendor hurried over to the Mercedes with a bag of mangoes. She handed them through the window. The woman put her cell phone on the dashboard and then took the mangoes out of the bag one by one, sniffing them and squeezing them to check their ripeness. She rejected one, and the fruit vendor went back to her stall to replace it. The woman picked up her cell phone and resumed her conversation.
    I twisted around in my seat. There were now two dozen cars behind us, and a bus. The air was shimmering with exhaust fumes.
    Jai yen.
    I went back to my paper.   A tourist from Norway was complaining of the double pricing for foreigners at the Lumpini Boxing Stadium.   Tourists paid up to ten times what locals were charged, she said, and that wasn't fair. I smiled. Fairness wasn't a concept that necessarily applied to Thailand, especially where foreigners were concerned.
    The fruit vendor returned with a replacement mango. The woman smelled it, squeezed it, then put it into the carrier bag. She opened her Louis Vuitton handbag and took out a Prada purse and handed the vendor a red hundred baht note. The vendor zipped open the bag around her waist, slipped in the banknote and took out the woman's change. The woman took the change, checked it, put the money into the Prada purse, put the purse into her handbag, placed it on the passenger seat and closed the window. I didn't see her thank the fruit vendor, but that was par for the course for Thailand. Women who drove expensive imported cars did not generally say “please" or “thank you", at least not to fruit vendors. The window wound up, the woman checked her make-up in her driving mirror, then put the Mercedes into gear.
    We were off.
    Finally.
    Jai yen.
    The taxi moved forward. The Mercedes lady was talking on her cell phone again.   She indicated a right turn but then turned left on to Sukhumvit Road, oblivious to the motorcycle that narrowly missed slamming into her offside wing.
    The traffic light turned red and the taxi jerked to a halt. There were two policemen sitting in the booth across the road from us. It was getting close to the end of the month which meant that the police were looking for any excuse to pull over motorists and either issue a ticket to meet their quota or collect some tea money to pay their minor wife's rent. Bangkok's traffic light system was perfectly capable of being co-ordinated by a multi-million-pound computer system but more often than not the police would override it and do the changes manually, using walkie-talkies to liaise with their colleagues down the road. That meant that when a light turned red, you had no idea how long it would stay that way. Your fate lay in the hands of a man in a tight-fitting brown uniform with a gun on his hip.
    Jai yen.
    I went back to my paper. My taxi driver wound down his window and spat throatily into the street again.
    Just another day in Paradise.
    Not.
     
    * * * * *
     
    CHAPTER 2
     
    Ying is a stunner. A little over five feet tall with waist-length glossy black hair and cheekbones you could cut steel plate with, a trim waist and breasts that are, frankly, spectacular.
    Whoa, hoss.
    Stop right there.
    I'm married and old enough to be her