His sorting technique is primitive but appropriate for his practice: anything not concerning the Thai-Chinese businessman Samson Lee, no matter how grave and weighty, he forwards to his numerous assistants; anything touching on his master, no matter how trivial, he works on himself. He knew he was Lee’s slave, but so what? It was symbiotic. Lee simply could not survive in the U.S. without a lawyer of McKay’s cunning and ruthlessness, for he is perpetually hounded by all the usual suspects: FBI, CIA, DEA, Inland Revenue. Samson Lee thinks McKay some kind of blue-eyed magus, for Magnus always finds a way out of the apparently watertight traps these agencies lay for his client. Magnus has lost count of the jams he’s gotten Lee and his five sons out of, frequently risking his career. But that is the deal. Roughly thirty percent of the firm’s income comes from the Lee family and nobody, absolutely nobody in the firm so much as speaks to Lee’s secretary without McKay’s prior knowledge and approval. Samson Lee was the reason McKay got the second corner office.

Checking his solid gold Longines watch: seven thirty-five in the morning, which is the time Samson Lee likes him to start. In Bangkok it is twelve hours later, probably she’s started dancing already in that seedy bar, nearly naked in a G-string and flimsy bra - but sometimes she starts late. It is just possible she is sitting in an Internet café hoping to hear from him, and the salvation he represents. In response to more prodding from his loins, he logs on again to Yahoo Mail. Yep, there it is, a message from Naronsip Wiwatanasan, aka Lalita:

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