| FiirtHy Ricu | One cover of Vanity Fair can turn a minor celebrity into a ) superstar. And a single thoroughly researched story can bring down a corporate overlord. Carter’s easy to recognize: the pompadour of white hair, like a lion’s mane. The Santa Claus body stuffed into an impeccably tailored bespoke suit. He wears his fame lightly. But he could not be more serious about his responsibilities, which are weighing CHAPTER 36 heavily on him this month. Months earlier, he’d assigned a piece to Vicky Ward, an Englishwoman who wrote frequently for Van- d ity Fair. He’d meant for it to be an easy assignment: Ward was pregnant with twins. She wasn't allowed to fly. But here was a k story right on her doorstep. A nice, easy profile of Jeffrey Epstein. 2002 : Who was he, really? Carter knew he threw fabulous parties b attended by academics, billionaires, and beautiful women. Recently 3 3 he'd flown Bill Clinton to Africa. But no one seemed to know lary editor of Vanity Fair, likes to i q how he had made his fortune. Epstein’s story reminded the edi- yell before the rest of his staff : | tor of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. - o Carter himself could have stepped out of a novel—though in erate at a leisurely pace—three a 7 his case, the author would be Horatio Alger. A Canadian college assigning articles, and shooting 2 _ dropout who'd worked as a railroad lineman, he arrived in New sn followed by one frantic week am q York in his late twenties and commenced an astonishingly quick = done. But this isn’t the case at Ey rise up the social and media ladders. But where Carter was open itting investigative pieces along- a q and outgoing, Epstein really was Gatsby-like—very little about . There are also parties to plan 4 ; him was known. Maybe, Carter thought, Ward could find out. us parties, including the annual ‘ 4 What did Epstein do, exactly, for money? Why was he so secretive? «fun and far more exclusive than | Why were so many brilliant and powerful men drawn to