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JAMES PATTERSON

One estranged friend says that he had to loan Epstein money
to pay the bill at Epstein’s garage, which had seized Epstein’s car
for nonpayment.
Another estranged friend says that Epstein didn’t have two
nickels to rub together.
Diana Crane, a former model, says that Epstein always had
first-class upgrades he would give to his friends so they didn’t
have to fly economy class.
“No one knew where or how he got them,” Crane recalls.
“Sometimes they worked, and other times they didn’t. I remem-
ber he saw a friend of mine wearing a Concorde jacket. He asked
if he could borrow it for a day or so. My friend never got the
jacket back. But Epstein would tell people he always flew on the
Concorde—a total lie.”
But even if Epstein were flush, Les Wexner would have been
a big fish to catch.
From the get-go, Meister’s wife, Wendy, had her suspicions
about Epstein. About the way he presented himself and the way
he worked himself into their inner circle.
Before long, Wendy was calling Epstein the virus.
But for Epstein, the Meisters weren’t the point. Wexner was.
And hard as it is to understand why the billionaire would
associate with a man who’d worked with a Ponzi king like Steven
Hoffenberg, it turned out that Wexner and Epstein would get
along perfectly well.

114

Ghislaine Maxwell

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Epstein, the bo
social ladder. T
heiress from the Unite
of the world’s most gla
Maxwell was the y
the most famous—ev
Robert Maxwell, was
French Foreign Legion
had gone on to becom
he’d become a media
birth name was Ján L
died in disgrace in 19
side of his supersize y
“The shtetl Solotv

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