This image was lost some time after publication.

A sharp-eyed Defamer operative noticed something curious on his way to work this morning: Paris Hilton's profanely expensive celebutard conveyance abandoned in a parking lot near Privilege and Hyde, perhaps indicating that her recent DUI might have her thinking twice about taking to the streets after enjoying a single, 65-ounce margarita on an empty stomach. Says our correspondent:

So, I'm driving to the office far earlier than usual. As I pass Privilege, I spot Paris Hilton's Mercedes SLR (there are only a few in town, so you notice them... I know the color and the lisc plate because I see it parked in front of her house on Kings Road all the time) parked alone and locked up in the valet parking lot on the North side of Sunset. Could it be our girl is learning? Is it possible that - as leaving Privilege or Hyde (1/2 a block away) at 2:30 - she actually said to a friend "I'm too buzzed on my one cocktail to drink, why don't I leave my $500,000 car here and you can drive me home?" Maybe Elliott Mintz was too tired to walk back from Paris' house and fetch it at 4AM?

It's almost impossible to imagine that Mintz could commit such a flagrant dereliction of his duty to his highest-profile (only?) client by allowing her to leave valuable property relatively attended overnight; we think a much more likely scenario involves Hilton catching a ride home with a prospective sexual partner, asking her much put-upon handler to spend the night asleep in the SLR until she returned from her tryst the next morning.