## JAMES PATTERSON

"It's the Icarus story, someone who flies too close to the sun," that journalist said in reference to "the agony” of Epstein's legal "ordeal."

"Did Icarus like massages?" Epstein responded.

But after Epstein's indictment, there were no more boasts. For the most part, he kept silent in public and retreated into his Eyes Wide Shut world. And when the New York Times did manage to get him to speak on the record, he spoke like a chastened man.

Sitting on his patio down on Little St. James, Epstein likened himself to the shipwrecked Gulliver after he washes ashore on Lilliput.

"Gulliver's playfulness had unintended consequences," he said. On the eve of his departure, he had a few more things to say:

"That is what happens with wealth. There are unexpected burdens as well as benefits...."

"Your body can be confined, but not your mind...."

"I am not blameless...."

Outside of the agreement he'd signed with the prosecutor's office, this was the closest Epstein had come to admitting his guilt. But strange details were sprinkled throughout the story. He had formed a "board of directors of friends" who would coun- sel him on his behavior. And, seemingly for the first time, he'd hired a full-time masseur-a man.

Readers of the New York Times might have wondered: Epstein was going to jail for eighteen months. What need would he have for a full-time masseur?

The story's last line hinted at the answer: in preparation for incarceration, Epstein had set up an e-mail alert.

From then on, his automatic reply would read "On vacation."

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