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00:00:04
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you one little quick story comes. This is a funny story. We were out drinking party. Any one of my friends was a virgin. We said, you know, you can't do that. Were twenty years old. Well, so one o'clock at night we take him out. On fifty eight. They wouldn't let us in, but when they we wouldn't let us sin On twenty nine. We was about four or five of us and we weren't. We got we'd been drinking, but still, I'm a fun guy. I don't get mad. I have the time. So they left us sin out there and we said, this guy right here never been with a woman, fix him up and get him good. So we sitting around talking and try and get us. Then my brother in law, Padel, came over to me and wanted me to go. I said, I can go back there. We'll go back. She said, what do you want? She said? I said, you know, honestly, I want to talk to you. She said, are you gay? And I said no, with a girlfriend. I'm happily satisfied, but I want to talk to you about your life. Why did you get into this?
00:01:08
Speaker 2: What is it?
00:01:09
Speaker 1: And for thirty minutes we sat on that bed, and she opened up to me, like what we're doing? And she said, honey, yours is free tonight. I said, Sugar, I appreciate that. I'm not here for that. I'm here for my fun. I'm having some fun. But I'm gonna give you my card if you ever need something, let me know. A month or two later, she walks in my office and Deaddy's eyes light up like this. But she hed called him before the grand jury and she wanted to see me. So she came back to back office and I'm sitting I like, WHOA, what's going on? She said. You know, I've never had anybody come in in and do me like you are. I've got a young daughter. I want her away from what I do, and I want to buy some land with a house to where I can keep her away from it. I said, Sugar, i'll help you. I told you when I'm at you, i'll help you. She said, well, I got fifty thousand dollars cash, and I said, where is it. She said, Tom Barker's got fifty thousand dollars my money. I said, you don't have fifty thousand dollars. She said, what do you mean? I said, when you go to ask for it, you're probably gonna get the crap beat out of it. You don't be shipped down to Carolina, honey. That's why they call it white slavery. It breaks my heart. And if I'm wrong, you come back to see me. But I think I'm right, and you ought to get out of this now why you can.
00:02:40
Speaker 3: Truck shot brothels run by a web of x cons, a commonwealth attorney wasted on whiskey and power, protection exchanged for cash and flesh. A brish local reporter exposing it all. This is hooker Gate, criminals and libertines in the South. And I am your host, Doctor Lindsey Byron, author, historian and lifelong wayward woman. This forgotten scandal happened in my hometown. Join me as I use crumbling news clippings, interviews, and dramatic reenactments to bring to life for the first time in nearly fifty years, this wild ride of hedonistic corruption.
00:03:25
Speaker 2: Episode five, Keeping the Peace.
00:03:35
Speaker 3: Can you tell us how you got involved in this line of work, Brianna, I was.
00:03:41
Speaker 4: Never a prostitute before I went to Danville. I was only in the business for three months and I was forced into that business because I was threatened. My boyfriend threatened me and told me that if I didn't get out and go to work, I've never seen my daughter again. And for three years I haven't seen my daughter.
00:04:08
Speaker 2: It's up to you how long she stays.
00:04:10
Speaker 3: Tommy told the strange man from out of town. As together they huddled in the office. From the bar outside, Janet eavesdropped beside. Janet said, a woman who'd come in on the arm of that strange man. That woman darted her eyes from the office door to her ragged cuticles and back again.
00:04:37
Speaker 2: What's your name? Janet asked her. What's my name? Or what do they call me? What's your name, Brianna?
00:04:51
Speaker 3: Though I don't guess that'll be of much use here. Well, what name would be of use here?
00:05:01
Speaker 2: Kitten? The men call me kitten.
00:05:06
Speaker 3: You don't sound much like you want to be here, Brianna.
00:05:11
Speaker 2: I don't. Then, why are you?
00:05:16
Speaker 3: Brianna gestured to the office door. Janet noticed four small bruises dotting her throat. He dragged my ass here from South Carolina, and he'll drag my ass wherever the hell he wants to go next.
00:05:29
Speaker 2: So it's all the same to me. All I care about is getting back to my daughter.
00:05:36
Speaker 3: On her finger, she rotated a signet ring engraved with initials.
00:05:43
Speaker 2: That man is running her. Janet told Tommy later, I don't care who she gives the money to. Tommy replied, as long as.
00:05:53
Speaker 3: She gives the first half to me. It's not funny, Tommy. She don't want to be here, and thank you kindly for your opinion, Tommy replied, then turned his back and drew from his pocket an envelope folded in half. He couldn't bear to let Janet know that despite how hard they'd worked, all of them, her, him, the girls, hell, even door man Roy, the numbers just weren't adding up. Tommy could not allow morality to clout his business decisions at this time. It isn't my opinion, Tommy, you and that man talking about she stays as long as you say, she stays talking about.
00:06:38
Speaker 2: I don't care who she gives the money to.
00:06:41
Speaker 3: I don't agree with that shit, Tommy, and I.
00:06:45
Speaker 2: Don't agree with eavesdropping.
00:06:47
Speaker 3: He returned, thumbing through the contents of the envelope, counting under his breath. Wayne would be by any time to pick up this week's fee. Why exactly, this man ought to receive such a hunk of his earnings. Tommy couldn't decide. Holly called it protection. Tommy called it blackmail. Tommy felt his eyelid jump as he sealed the envelope containing precious hundreds earmarked for a rich man.
00:07:19
Speaker 2: He
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hated, Hello out there, A female voice rang out from the lounge. Can somebody get me in? This fine gentleman squared away?
00:07:34
Speaker 3: Please you handle it? Tommy shot over his shoulder. He didn't mean to be mean, He didn't want to be mean, Yet clouds closed ever.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: Around his restless spirit.
00:07:54
Speaker 3: Janet followed orders, but in her heart a seed of disco tent sprouted roots. This is my first night back in three weeks, and y'all got us out here waiting, Connie teased Janet. When Janet finally met her at the counter. Behind Connie, a builder from South Hill shuffled his feet.
00:08:21
Speaker 2: What does he want, Connie? He wants a straight Janet?
00:08:27
Speaker 3: Go on, then, Janet said, and Connie led the builder to a room in the back. I knew you'd return, Connie cooed as she shut the door. Janet returned to her desk, the location she'd been working more often than the back rooms. Lately, cutting up the money and creating schedules keeping track of clientele, Janet found herself dealing in log books more often than hand relief. These days, she buried herself and balancing the budget away to be useful to perhap apps iron out the wrinkle. Stubbornly forming in their love, Janet barely had time to engross herself in the numbers. However, when she heard Connie laughing down the hallway again. That didn't take long, Janet remarked, after Connie escorted.
00:09:23
Speaker 2: The builder out the door.
00:09:25
Speaker 3: Never does, Connie smiled, handing Janet two fives and a ten. Janet looked at the clock, almost nine. The darkness gathered outside, enveloping the truck stop in a blanket of night. This was a hidden place and out of the way stop, small, unobtrusive, humble made of cinder blocks and tin, a hiding place for sin. Janet added Connie's two fives and a ten to the slim stack of ca collected that day. She stacked the bills according to denominations, waiting until it was all organized to determine the final sum. Some girls seem so free, like Connie, flitting in and out of the truck stop, from week to week, to month to month, laughing all the while. Then there were girls like this new one, Brianna Sullen, quiet, strangely beholden to some man. No man could ever lord over me like that. We think as strong, independent women, until one day get under his thumb. And you don't know how it happened. You just know you can't get out. Hell, maybe you don't want to get out. Maybe this is love now unpacked. Crept silently from her room to Janet's desk.
00:11:06
Speaker 2: Where can I make a call?
00:11:08
Speaker 3: She asked, and Janet pointed to the phone at the end of the bar. As she finished organizing the day's earnings, Janet noticed a strange doodle and blue ink on one of the bills. Across the room. She heard Brianna promise into the phone, Mommy will be home soon. Poor fool, Janet thought, depositing the cash into a bag.
00:11:39
Speaker 2: Okay, missus Dowdy.
00:11:40
Speaker 3: After Phyllis
got out of the hospital, did you have anything to do with her going to her mother's and not coming back to Harold Wayne.
00:11:48
Speaker 2: No, sir, were you in charge at that time?
00:11:53
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, Phyllis had been in charge before that time, hadn't she?
00:11:58
Speaker 2: From what I.
00:11:59
Speaker 1: Heard, she wasn't capable of being in charge?
00:12:03
Speaker 2: And you feel like you are much more capable, don't you?
00:12:07
Speaker 5: Yes?
00:12:07
Speaker 2: I was.
00:12:18
Speaker 3: The night was black on Highway fifty eight. As Harold Wayne drove home to Robin, one side of his mind clicked with anxiety. Slap dab in the middle of the night. And yet that bastard Whitehead had him by the nuts again.
00:12:34
Speaker 2: Joe says, jump. Harold Wayne says how.
00:12:37
Speaker 3: High h WD rotated a ruby ring around his pinky. He'd see what he could do about finding Whitehead a girl tonight. Somehow it was imperative he keeped the peace, But first he'd lay a kiss on the woman he loved, blessed least sleeping now in his bend, A woman he worked too hard, maybe and treated too hard for sure. He'd given her expensive gifts, yes, unending compliments, passionate love making, but he'd also allowed her to carry a heavy load when she'd first arrived at the fifty h w D had expected Robin to flash in and out of his life in the same way most women did. He hadn't expected to fall instantly madly in love He hadn't expected her to fall in love right back the first time they kissed, pressed against the wood paneled dark corner of the fifty eight, he promised himself, only this one.
00:13:55
Speaker 2: Time, another promise he hadn't kept.
00:14:01
Speaker 3: After all, there was Phyllis to consider, and along with Phyllis, of course, there was the baby. Do the right thing, he lectured himself daily, And yet daily he did the wrong thing instead.
00:14:22
Speaker 2: But was it wrong? This love? How could this love be wrong? The heart bent.
00:14:31
Speaker 3: Itself to the laws of nature, not morality. Harold Wayne no more chose to lose himself to Robin than he chose to breathe, to sleep, to dream. I think you should move in with your mother, he told Phyllis in the weeks preceding the birth of their child.
00:14:51
Speaker 2: She can't do her job worth a.
00:14:53
Speaker 3: Shit, Robin grumbled to herself, often observing the ever expe Phyllis. One day, Phyllis, red faced and tears streaked, knocked the heavy log book to the floor and couldn't heartily pick the damn thing back up.
00:15:10
Speaker 2: She'd gotten so big.
00:15:12
Speaker 3: Robin simply glared on with a smirk. Did your turn next, Phyllis told her miserably from her crouch on the floor. Robin hadn't mentioned that exchange to Harold Wayne. Instead, as Phyllis moved out, Robin moved in. How could it be wrong? How could this love be wrong? The night was black on Highway fifty eight. When at last Harold Wayne arrived home. It was deep into the darkest hour of morning. Robin slept soundly on satin sheets. Not a bruise on her not a worry carved into her brow, nor an alarm.
00:16:01
Speaker 2: Set for the next shift.
00:16:04
Speaker 3: Since he'd suggest that she take time off, she'd been sleeping long hours, going to bed sometimes at nine at night, and not waking until noon the next day. She hadn't set still for far too long. He wouldn't wake her now, not for anyone, not even Joseph Mottley Whitehead. The next afternoon, Harold Wayne brought Robin with him to work, took her into the office. You'll be responsible for booking girls, he explained, as he pulled out a black book from his desk. We need to refresh you women every three weeks. There's a list of candidates in that file cabinet over there. But most important Robin is working that door I need a discerning head at that door. When a customer comes in, you'll record his appearance, hair color, size, age, check his driver's license, see if he has any paycheck stubs or any other kind of identification to show you he.
00:17:01
Speaker 2: Ain't law enforcement. Finally, you'll cut up the money.
00:17:05
Speaker 3: Harold Wayne, She interrupted, I thought you wanted me to take time off.
00:17:15
Speaker 2: From dating. He replied, no more dates. I'm moving you to management. She smiled that smile that he adored, part trouble, part home. In his pocket, he palmed a diamond ring.
00:17:41
Speaker 5: Missus Whitehead describes their marriage to have been in serious trouble for the past four or five years. She states that her husband alienates people, mostly when he's drinking. Her statement was, in her exact words, Joe has been acting nutty for the past four or five years. She said that he has an ability to charm people and swept her off her feet when she first met him. She admits to having married him primarily because of his charm, education, and status within the community, and she felt she would be well off. She said they have not related sexually for the past three years, and prior to that they had a very difficult time. She goes on to elaborate that he has on several occasions verbalized that the world is against him, and she has felt that he was suicidal on several occasions. In the past year. He has talked several times about killing himself and refers to shooting himself. She sleeps in a separate bedroom from her husband now and is really uncertain as to the prognosis of the marriage.
00:18:43
Speaker 2: You're out of control, Joe.
00:18:47
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Whitehead balanced a toddler on her hip, Drinking like a fish, she said, gone at.
00:18:55
Speaker 2: All hours of the night, coming home smelling like a bitch. Heat.
00:19:02
Speaker 3: I gave you everything, Joe muttered, head down. If he kept his eyes on his speech, he might not notice that his head was swimming. You're drunk right now, aren't you. The baby started crying. I'm gonna do better, he promised. You said that last time.
00:19:30
Speaker 2: It's just whoa.
00:19:32
Speaker 3: We couldn't get pregnant, and you were so upset, and I had just a case after case, and I had It's been a year of excuses, Joe, years of excuses. Joe. He sank onto the couch, put his head in his hands. A great wrapped his shoulders. You were two inches away from running for the Senate, Joe, and now look at you wheeling and dealing with the lowest of the low and thinking I won't mind, the baby wailed louder. Well, I do mind, Elizabeth said, over her child's cries. And this will turn out badly. Look it already has. Let me hold the baby, Liz hail no. Elizabeth turned on her heels and went into the nursery. Half an hour later, she returned, the baby sleeping in her crib, at last to find her husband sitting on the couch with a pistol in his hand. Is this what you want, he asked, raising the gun to his temple. Joe, A tear sped down his cheek. I told you i'd do better, and I haven't. We can fix it, joke, we can, we can fix it. He lowered the gun to his life. One room over, a baby restarted her wail.
00:21:29
Speaker 6: Couldn't he tell us what happened that night? Missus Barker.
00:21:32
Speaker 7: I was working at the twenty nine one night when I got a call from Wayne Holly. He told me it was him and asked if I would like to do a favor and would I get another female companion and come to his trailer, and I said yes. I called my husband Thomas. I told him where I was going, and I was to pick up another girl who was Tnita Williams. We went to the car lot and I blew the horn. Mister Holly came to the door and I went inside, and mister Whitehead and another man were drinking pretty bad, and then Nita went to bed with both of them. I had sexual relations with mister Whitehead. We got into a disagreement and I got mad and left. He made the statement that he owned me, and I did not like it.
00:22:26
Speaker 5: Did you get paid for that?
00:22:28
Speaker 3: Not?
00:22:29
Speaker 7: No? I did not.
00:22:36
Speaker 3: Tommy was well thoroughly tired of sharing his woman with other men, and he made no secret of it. Customers could sense his antipathy and rarely requested Janet for dates. They'd see her working that desk and figure she was off the table anyway she was. But when the phone rang one night and mister Wayne Holly interrupted Janet in her sorting of cash to ask her personally for a favor, well, how could she say no again?
00:23:10
Speaker 2: Bring that Tanita Gal too, he told her.
00:23:14
Speaker 3: The happier everyone kept Whitehead, the more peaceful things ran. The more peaceful things ran, the more peaceful ran the love between Tommy and Janet.
00:23:30
Speaker 2: Well, I know you don't want to do it. Not rather you not do it, Tommy said.
00:23:35
Speaker 3: When she called him for guidance, His attention divided by the pills, he separated into piles on the coffee table. The squeeze had gotten tight. Couldn't get much tighter. He'd make his money anyway, he knew how. Janet drove through the night to Tanita's trailer. She banged
on the door four good times before a shirtless young man creaked it open.
00:24:02
Speaker 2: Tanita couldn't still be working? Could she here out of her home?
00:24:07
Speaker 3: Janet asked, as she slid by the man into Tanita's bedroom. Shan't working, She's sleeping, the young man replied. Janet found Tanita snoring, face down.
00:24:22
Speaker 2: Tanita.
00:24:24
Speaker 3: Janet shook her. Tanita continued to snore. Tanita.
00:24:31
Speaker 2: Janet pinched her. Tanita continued to snore. Well, damn, it's only ten o'clock, she said, down the hallway to the strange young man. Why is she dead asleep?
00:24:48
Speaker 3: The young man sat down on the bed beside t Anita stroked her cheek, pushed a stray lock of hair out of her face. Come on, baby, he said in her ear. One of your friends is here to see you. Gotta wake up. Tanita's eyelids fluttered, and then she sat up, looked around listen manner, she slurred. What's her deal, Janet asked the young man. He sat down beside Tanita squeezed her arms and shoulders, rubbing her to wake her, as one might towel off a newly born puppy. Her eyelids fluttered again, and then they snapped wide open. She looked at Janet and asked, what are you doing here?
00:25:43
Speaker 2: I need your help.
00:25:44
Speaker 3: I'm all for it. I know me too, but I need you. It's Joe Whitehead again. Tanita's eyes fluttered clothes. Janet looked to the young man.
00:26:00
Speaker 2: For God's sakes, go make her some coffee.
00:26:04
Speaker 3: Within the hour, the two women were on the road to Carriage Hill Trailer Park. Why the hell are you working out of your own home, Janet's shot at the woman, still sleepy in her passenger seat.
00:26:19
Speaker 2: You can't cut Tommy out. You know that ain't right. I won't work in then? Who was that man? To Nita?
00:26:31
Speaker 3: Not everything is work, Janet? He a friend He's more than a friend. You know, love don't last in this world? To Nita, you might want to tell that to yourself, Janna. Na did not want to fight with this woman. She could tell by the way Tanita slurred her words and peered through half shut eyes.
00:27:09
Speaker 2: That she won't all the way with it.
00:27:14
Speaker 3: Nonetheless, Tanita's words irritated a spot in the corner of Janet's heart.
00:27:20
Speaker 2: Love don't last, Well, that wasn't true for her and Tommy, was it? Sure?
00:27:27
Speaker 3: Tommy had been irritable lately and secretive. Janet sometimes wondered where his mind traveled. What was Tommy always worrying about? With his silence, his closed doors, his furrowed brow. When the two women entered the trailer, Whitehead and his friend wasted no time. Whitehead wrestled Tanita on the couch, kissed her all over, smacked her on her ass, and sent her off to a bedroom with his buddy. You and me, we can go to other bedroom, he said to Janet, I want to spend some time on you. Well why it had made himself comfortable on the bed, Janet filled up a bowl with warm, soapy water. As Janet gently washed him, he smacked her hand away, give me a blowjob at this, her patience broke. You talk to me like I'm a damn dog now, Janet, I'm a friend, a friend. How are you a friend? Just helped me out here a little bit, Janet? He tugged ineffectually at himself. Tommy can't hardly pay the rent, and yet here comes mister Holly. Every Wednesday, the lord sends with his damn hand out, Janet, every single day, you drive Tommy an inch crazier.
00:29:08
Speaker 2: And who has to pay for that?
00:29:10
Speaker 5: Me?
00:29:11
Speaker 2: I have to pay for that.
00:29:14
Speaker 3: Please, Janet, let's please play nice.
00:29:22
Speaker 2: Fuck you. Joe Whitehead relinquished his grasp, his dick plunking weakly on his lap. Watch your mouth, he warned.
00:29:36
Speaker 3: One call to Sheriff McGregor, and I'll have your two bit business shutdown quicker than you can say.
00:29:41
Speaker 2: Boo honey.
00:29:43
Speaker 3: He shifted his weight, then stood fully on the bed. The frosted glass ceiling lamp cast a golden halo around his head as he towered now above Janet, his crotch in her face.
00:30:02
Speaker 2: Tears of rage.
00:30:04
Speaker 3: Flooded her eyes. She knew she shouldn't talk back to this man. She knew that to get what she wanted, a peaceful home and income, a.
00:30:16
Speaker 2: Hope for a better life. That she had to give this man whatever he wanted so much depended on her compliance, And wasn't that the story of womanhood? Compliance?
00:30:31
Speaker 3: Smile, be pretty, don't complain, suck the limp dick of authority, and do it with a smile. But Janet wasn't just a yes. She wasn't just a warm body eternally open. Janet was running out of smiles. She had ghosts.
00:30:52
Speaker 2: She was a whole person, not a plaything traded between men. She looked up.
00:30:58
Speaker 3: To this gray man standing above her, the son of judges, the nephew of lawyers, and repeated, simply, fuck.
00:31:09
Speaker 2: You, I own you, Janet, Fuck you.
00:31:20
Speaker 3: I own you, Janet, he repeated, and then jumped on the bed hard.
00:31:28
Speaker 2: I own you.
00:31:34
Speaker 3: Janet leaped from the bed and flattened herself against the wall. I own you, I own you, I own you.
00:31:48
Speaker 6: He hollered, leaping ever higher and landing ever harder, until a loud crack issued from the bed, the frame buckling, tumbling Joe Whitehead to the floor.
00:32:07
Speaker 2: Wayne gonna be mad.
00:32:08
Speaker 3: You broke his bed, Janet said, then stepped over the fallen politician on her.
00:32:14
Speaker 2: Way out the door. Thanks for listening. My name is Lindsay Byron.
00:32:30
Speaker 3: But most people know me as lux ATL. Learn more about my work tips out, globe trotting and mansions worldwide at Good Times, Badgirls dot com. Follow me on the Gram and TikTok at lux Underscore Atl, on YouTube at Lux at L, and on substock, where I blog weekly at Tumultuous True Stories.
00:32:58
Speaker 2: By Lindsay Byron.
00:33:00
Speaker 3: You'd like to hear more about my own experience slang and companionship across the South. Read my memoir Too Pretty to Be Good by Lindsay Byron. Find it on Amazon, Barnesandnoble dot com and anywhere books are sold online. Hey, if you'd like to continue to listen to me tell stories, check out my first podcast, strip Cast True Stories from a Stripper with the PhD. Listen on Spotify and iTunes. Follow this podcast on the Gram at Cookergate Underscore podcast theme music and sound design by my long term partner in artistic crime, Guy Kelly, You the illist GK. Check out his work at Guy Kelly dot com. While this podcast is based upon real events, certain elements have been fictionalized for dramatic effect. I cannot know for certain what exactly was said behind closed doors, so I combine my research and imagination to dramatize scenes described most often under oath in coord and occasionally secondhand via journalistic or personal accounts. Find citations in this show notes. The pitch for this podcast won the twenty twenty one Next Great Podcast competition hosted by Tongle and iHeartRadio, which is why I'm here now producing this joint my gratitude for the opportunity. Hooker Gate is a production of iHeartMedia as together the two huddled in the fuck.
00:34:37
Speaker 2: Okay, let me start evert.
00:34:42
Speaker 3: W No, I'm gonna call him something different. It's a little bit better, okay,