murky. Sure, Goldman Sachs partners and tech fortunes, but what to make of a Coney Island, Zelig-like no-namer? In 1994, just at the moment when Prince Charles is on television acknowledging his love for Camilla Parker Bowles, Jeffrey Epstein is sitting with his arm around Princess Diana at a dinner at the Serpentine Galley in London (Diana is wearing her “revenge” dress that evening). Graydon Carter, into his second years as editor of Vanity Fair, is also at the dinner. Epstein’s rise and Carter’s rise are not, with a little critical interpretation, that different. Both are a function of the age of new money, both are helped by strategic relationships with the exceptionally wealthy (i.e. they are social climbers), both men have made themselves up. To say that Epstein, in the company of the Princess, sticks in Carter’s craw would be an understatement. Epstein becomes one of the “what do you know about him” figures in Carter’s gossip trail—a story waiting to happen. A variety of the gossip that begins to circulate about Epstein—for instance, that he secretly films his guests—is seeded by Carter, who once advised me not to go to Epstein’s house or accept a ride in his car least I risk being blackmail. (“For what?” I asked Carter. “For you have no idea,” said Carter.) Epstein is playing a cat and mouse game with his own growing wealth and influence. He 1s private and secretive, but grandly so. He joins the board of Rockefeller University. He’s suddenly on the Trilateral commission, that cabal of business people who fancy themselves, and who are fancied by conspiracy buffs, as running the world. He buys from his client Limited Founder Les Wexner the larges private house in Manhattan. (Rumors will continue for many years, that Wexner owns the house and Epstein is just squatting in it—an 18-year squat.) He buys an airplane. He buys another. He expands his holdings in New Mexico. He begins a Zanadu refurbishment of his Caribbean Island. He befriends Bill Clinton in his