Boulanger's  Traiteur

        The traiteurs found they could turn their simple eateries into "bistros"––a term purported to be coined by hungry Russian troops entering Paris after Napoleon's exile in 1814, shouting "Bistra, bistra!" (quick, quick!), but this is myth. The term doesn't even appear in French print until 1880 when it referred to an innkeeper.
        The term restaurant in American English first occurs in 1820, in James Fenimore Cooper's novel The Prairie as "the most  renowned of Parisian restaurant," and the first true restaurant in the U.S. was Delmonico's, which opened in New York in 1831.

❖❖❖

“Looks like Epstein and Maxwell are back in town,” Dobell told Katie. “Page Six says they held a party at his mansion last night with all the usual gang of pols, lawyers, actors and so on. Woody Allen was there.”
       “With his wife Soon-Yi?”
       “Doesn’t say.”
       “Maybe it’s time to make another call to Ghislaine.”
       “You think she’ll talk to you?”
       “Well, I’m going to tell her about all I’ve found out since the New York Magazine sale. See if she or Jeffrey has any comment. David thinks she’s actually dying to talk about it. He thinks she has guilt feelings and wants her side of the story known.”
       “That I doubt.”
       “No comment is always a comment,” said Katie. “Worth a try.”
       Katie called the number she had for Maxwell and got a recording. Katie left a message that she was looking into the police investigation about Epstein going on in Palm Beach, saying, “I hope I can get your side of the story.”
       At three o’clock Maxwell called her back.
       Without any hello, she said, “You know very well Jeffrey can’t talk about an ongoing investigation. His lawyers would never allow it.”
       “And what about you?” asked Katie, seeking to find out if Maxwell herself was under the same investigation.
       There was a long pause, then Maxwell said, “Can we speak off the record?”
       “I doubt that’s going to work, but we can try.”
       “Right. How about coming over to my townhouse tonight around seven-thirty? You have the address?”
       Katie did and closed off the conversation, saying she’d be there right on time.
       Epstein had, supposedly, bought Maxwell’s five-story 1910 Beaux Arts townhouse on East 65^th Street apartment for five million dollars in 2002 and it was worth a great deal more now.
       Katie rang the doorbell and heard Maxwell say through the intercom, “Coming down right now.” Thirty seconds later she opened the iron grill entrance doors flanked by Ionic columns and led her into a huge foyer with a curved staircase to one side and an elevator to the other, with a red carpet in the middle and on one wall what Katie thought was a Pre-Raphaelite painting of musicians.
       “Come into the drawing room,” said Maxwell, who was dressed in black jeans and a red cashmere turtleneck. “There’s no one here but the two of us.”
       They sat on opposite couches, near an ornate marble  fireplace, and Katie took out her recorder and placed it on the glass coffee table.
       “I thought we agreed to be off the record,” said Maxwell.
       “And I said we’d give it a try. Let’s see how it goes on the record.”
       Maxwell nodded and waved her hand.
       Katie began. “Last time we spoke I kept my promise to only ask Jeffrey about his bidding on New York, which he failed to  get. That story was tanked by my editor because there wasn’t much beyond the sale to carry it. But since then I’ve been looking into why the Palm Beach police are investigating Jeffrey for sex trafficking. Is that something you can tell me about now?”
       Maxwell did not hesitate. “It’s all rubbish.”
       Katie said nothing and waited, then said, “So you never saw any of that sort of thing going on at Jeffrey’s various homes? You were in no way involved in any such activities? And I ask you that question on the record.”
       Maxwell made a fist and hit the table. “Never. You hear all this stuff about massages, and yes, Jeffrey loved to get a massage. Sometimes three a day, so he had professional masseuses come in on a regular schedule.”
       “Always young women?”
       “Not always young. Some had years of experience.”
       “And did you arrange that schedule?”
       “Some of the time, yeah.”
      “You used agencies I could look up in Palm Beach or Manhattan that offer massage therapy?”
       Maxwell replied, “Okay, this is totally on the record. I’m sure you did some research on my background. This beautiful townhouse you’re sitting in—where I grew up it would fit into one wing. My family lived in a 52-room mansion on fourteen acres of beautiful countryside outside of Oxford (right). My father was a member of the British Parliament, owned many newspapers, including the New York Daily News at one time, and he named his yacht after me. Do I sound like someone who would become a social secretary for Jeffrey or anyone else?”
       Katie flipped over pages of her notebook. “As I understand it, after your father died you had a trust fund that paid you a hundred thousand dollars a year, which, obviously, doesn’t go very far in New York. Certainly not enough to buy this little townhouse.”
       “I think it’s well known that Jeffrey helped me out with securing a loan while I made my way in the New York real estate industry.”
       “And you’ve lived here for, what, about two years?”
       Maxwell nodded. “My point is, Katie, Jeffrey came from nothing and achieved a great deal in his life. I admire him and we’ve had some very good times together. He’s extremely generous to his friends”
       “And did you have a romantic relationship with him?”
       “I have no comment on that.”
       “But it’s safe to say you spend a great deal of time with him, here and at his other properties? I can’t seem to find real estate sales you’ve made in the records over the past five years.”
       “Let’s just say my life has taken a turn for the better. I loved my father very much, and his death affected me very deeply.”
       “And I understand you have suggested that it was  not a suicide but a murder?”
       Maxwell stood up and walked to the fireplace to stoke the flames.
       “I do indeed. But that’s not what you’re here to ask me, is it?”
       “No,” said Katie, “I just want to get all the details straight.”
       “On the record I have every reason to believe he was murdered. The press said he was in dire debt and could not face it. Rubbish! My father was afraid of nothing and no man. He had pulled himself out of financial ruin more times than any of his colleagues, and, unlike Donald Trump, he did it by using his tremendous business acumen.”
       “Do you want to tell me who you think murdered your father?”
       “No, I do not. Can we get back to your questions about Jeffrey?”
       Katie sensed that Maxwell was trying to distance herself from Epstein, perhaps trying to get her side of the story out and fend off the police.
       Katie turned more pages of her notebook.
       “Do you know who Virginia Giuffre is?”
       Maxwell placed the fireplace poker back in its stand and said, “Virginia is an absolute liar and everything she has said is a lie. Therefore, based on those lies I cannot speculate on what anybody else did or didn’t do.  Everything she said is false. Everything.”
       “So she was not one of Jeffrey’s masseuses?”
       “She might have been. There were a lot of them at the various properties. They’d travel with him, so I might have met one called Virginia. But I never heard of this Giuffre girl.”
       “Well, that’s her married name now. Her maiden name was Peters.”
       “I only know she used the name Giuffre when she attacked Jeffrey’s reputation and went to the police.”
       “And did you ever see Giuffre with Prince Andrew?”
       “Andrew is a very good friend of Jeffrey’s and they travel together often. They might have  had a masseuse on the plane.”
       “Giuffre?”
       “I don’t know, maybe once or twice.”
      “She also said it was you who introduced Prince Andrew to her.”
       Maxwell paused to gather her thoughts, thinking hard and quickly, then saying, “All I remember is that this Giuffre, or Peters, whatever her name was, met Andrew at one of Jeffrey’s parties. I don’t recall,  but maybe he asked me something like, who is that girl? And I might have introduced them.”
       “And you never trained Giuffre as a masseuse or sent her to Thailand to be professionally trained?”
       “Perhaps Jeffrey did. I don’t have any such connections in Thailand.”
       Katie now strongly suspected Maxwell was trying to put space between herself and Epstein and was probably well aware of everything Giuffre had told the police.
       “So, I just want to make sure,” said Katie. “Back in 1993—that’s two years after you moved to New York—someone placed an ad in a magazine called Yoga Journal offering a ‛full time position for an Iyengar Yoga Instructor  to teach a private individual.’ And that the ‛job includes fantastic perks such as extensive travel,’ then said interested parties should call  ‛Miss Maxwell’ at a phone number that was Epstein’s office number at the time. Was that you?”   
       Maxwell looked surprised by the questions and stammered, “When was this? Nineteen ninety-three? That was twelve years ago. I don’t remember but it’s possible that Jeffrey did ask me to place such an ad for experienced and well-trained masseuses. There was nothing sexual about it.”
       “And did some masseuses take you up on the offer?”
      “I just can’t remember that far back. There might have been some and if so, they were paid well and did enjoy the perks of traveling with Jeffrey. I hired a lot of various people to work at Jeffrey’s houses. They need a lot of upkeep. But only a  very small part of my job from time to time  was to find adult professional massage therapists for him, and as far as I knew, everyone who came to his house was an adult professional therapist. Jeffrey has serious back problems.”
    Katie felt that if Maxwell had any knowledge of Epstein’s financial dealings she would play dumb, so it was not worth taking up time in the interview.
    “Okay,” she said, “can you just confirm that the following men have, for whatever reason, attended Epstein’s parties?”
        “Go ahead.”
        Katie reeled off the names and Maxwell either said yes or she couldn’t recall. Then, to Katie’s surprise, she gave her other names of other prominent men. Katie realized Maxwell was trying to gather as many of such men into Epstein’s world so that, if they came under scrutiny, they’d be willing to help Epstein in any way they could. Make some calls, write some letters. Maxwell knew very well that Katie was going to be in contact with every name on the now long list. All of it on the record.
        “Last question,” said Katie. “Do you believe that Jeffrey will be indicted, either for sex trafficking or financial misconduct?”
        "I don’t see them getting anywhere with his financials. I imagine you know that men like Jeffrey keep their assets well out of reach. As for the sex trafficking, I find it impossible to believe that anyone’s going to take the word of some girl or a bunch of whores trying to extort Jeffrey.”
            Katie said, “Why do you call them whores?”
        Maxwell stuttered, “Well, I, I, mean that as a figure of speech. Some of them may well have been prostitutes or been offered money by these men to, to, go beyond massage.”
        “Do the names Ramona Sanchez and Vargas mean anything to you?”
        `Maxwell just shook her head, then  said, “Katie, it’s getting late. I’ve been very open with you, and I hope you take my side of the story seriously. You’re not going to get Jeffrey to speak with you. And, I should tell you that he knows about your working on this story and is very distressed.”
        “Meaning what?”
        “Meaning he can be vindictive.”   
        “Meaning what?”
        “That’s  all I’ll say. Let me show you out.”

 

 

 

 

 © John Mariani, 2024