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(TK Jimmy Goldsmith quote.) Still, the constant attendance of so many comely young (but of age) women—especially given his past conviction—seems so outside of conventional living or staffing or social or romantic relationships that it is hard to describe in a straightforward or straight-faced way. And while it may be part of the appeal for the men who come to visit Epstein, it is as well a peculiarity they put up with in order to spend time with him. It sometimes seems part of Epstein’s implicit challenge: not just look at me, but do you even believe what you see? Or it seems he is just oblivious to what others are thinking. A willful and perhaps fatal tone deafness. The Epstein house/office is, by careful design, exclusive and clubby, part hang out, part secret society. Along with the fact that, even after his jail term, the rich and powerful have continued to so eagerly solicit him, it’s also notable in the fixed hierarchy of who comes to whose turf, that, when they want to see Epstein, they tend to come to him. He’s created a world and you enter it. A week in late September—U.N. week as it happened—begins, over Sunday lunch, with a colloquial for billionaires: Gates, Mort Zuckerman, the real estate billionaire and owner of the Daily News, and Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder and early Facebook investor. The subject is Epstein’s concept for the Gates Foundation of what he calls a “donor advised fund” that could lend the Gates expertise to other billionaires and HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022901