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CHAPTER 36

2002

...ary editor of Vanity Fair, likes to
...well before the rest of his staff

...erate at a leisurely pace—three
...assigning articles, and shooting
...en followed by one frantic week
...s done. But this isn’t the case at
...itting investigative pieces along-
...s. There are also parties to plan
...us parties, including the annual
...e fun and far more exclusive than
...ny itself. Vanity Fair is an old,
...public face, just as Anna Wintour
...ic fashion magazine, Vogue.

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FILTHY RICH

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 heavily on him this month. Months earlier, he’d assigned a piece to Vicky Ward, an Englishwoman who wrote frequently for Vanity 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 story right on her doorstep. A nice, easy profile of Jeffrey Epstein. Who was he, really? Carter knew he threw fabulous parties attended by academics, billionaires, and beautiful women. Recently he’d flown Bill Clinton to Africa. But no one seemed to know how he had made his fortune. Epstein’s story reminded the editor of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

Carter himself could have stepped out of a novel—though in his case, the author would be Horatio Alger. A Canadian college dropout who’d worked as a railroad lineman, he arrived in New York in his late twenties and commenced an astonishingly quick rise up the social and media ladders. But where Carter was open and outgoing, Epstein really was Gatsby-like—very little about him was known. Maybe, Carter thought, Ward could find out. What did Epstein do, exactly, for money? Why was he so secretive? Why were so many brilliant and powerful men drawn to him? And where did those beautiful women come from?

Almost immediately, Epstein began a campaign to discredit Ward. He prevailed upon Conrad Black, the press baron and

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