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now-long-defunct connection to Bill Clinton, suddenly became a shadow over Hillary, and hence big news. “T told you,” said Epstein. There is Epstein in his inner world, trying, ostrich like, not to look out. Little beyond his strict realm seems palatable or even all that familiar to him. Not long ago, when I met him for lunch in the West Village, he noted that he hadn’t been out to lunch in a restaurant in ten years. It was a not particularly pleasant experience for him and we were done in 30 minutes. Then there is the outside world pressed to the glass, appalled and titillated by the monster inside the big house. Press accounts recycle the mysterious billionaire mythology—a man of vast and unsourced riches living in a parallel universe of absolute entitlement—with brief glimpses of him stepping out of the house (the same photos endlessly republished), and the assumption of depravity inside. In fact, the life in the house, without wife or children or conventional domestic demeanor, in some way conforms to the scripted fantasies: a life somewhere between Daddy Warbucks and Eyes Wide Shut. There is indeed a group of young women—1n their twenties and thirties—who act as Epstein’s support staff and companions. Some have worked for him for many years, marrying, having children, and continuing as part of his business and household infrastructure. One woman, on an afternoon when I was there, had just returned from an HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022899