February 25, 2025 • 31 mins
Ken settles into his new life in The Outfit. We meet the working girls and some more mafia goons, and learn the ins and outs of how a house of prostitution is run. A robbery at the club puts Kenny in The Outfit’s crosshairs.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
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Speaker 2 (00:13):
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Speaker 3 (00:20):
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Speaker 4 (00:34):
You're listening to Krook County. The views and opinions expressed
in this podcast are solely those of the individuals participating
in the podcast. This episode also contains subject matter, including
graphic depictions of violence, which may not be suitable for everyone.
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Previously on Crook County.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
I got recruited into the mob when I was seventeen
years old.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
After two years in the outfit, Kenny was on his
way up.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
He trusted me because I instilled money. I just did
my job. It's hard to find an honest guy in
the fucking outfit.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
He got a new boss.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
My crew boss was jack Jack Jackie Lama's eriksson.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
He ran the whorehouses, and Kenny got a new job
working the door at a brothel.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
A guy would come in, I'd introduce him to all
the girls by name. They would negotiate a deal. She
would hand me path the cake and then she would
be on her way.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
And then one night he met a girl I.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Think I was nineteen. I met her, she was twenty,
saw her sitting at the end of the bar. I
fell in love with her pretty quick.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
That pretty little redhead at the bar was my mother.
My name is Kyle Tequila. Welcome to Crook County.
Speaker 5 (01:50):
Yea.
Speaker 6 (02:06):
We would have to take bus every once in a while,
just so Cook County Cops, could, you know, show that
they're making some progress here.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So those are all arranged bus, Okay, Ken's your turn now, man.
When half the motherfuckers were running their own horse on
the side out of our fucking.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Clubs, episode four, Keeper of a House of Prostitution.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Coming from Paramount Pictures. And he's very good.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yeah, he's the best.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Amen, he's great. He's the king out there.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I'm watching the trailer to the nineteen seventy seven box
office monster Saturday Night Fever. Believe it or not, I've
actually never seen this movie, which obviously is a huge
mistake because it looks hilarious.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well, I mean, I could dance.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
To you, but you know, You're not a dream girl and.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Nothing ye a twenty three year old unknown actor named
John Travolta with his trademark Cleft Chin, strutting around Brooklyn
and Silk and Polyester, dancing up a storm every night
to what has become the second highest selling soundtrack of
all time, just behind the Bodyguard soundtrack.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Fuck that is a good song? Oh and how wild
is this?
Speaker 3 (03:37):
The Beg's didn't even write these cultural defining songs until
after the movie was filmed because the producers couldn't license
the original music, so they scrambled and begged the Begees
to write a few songs on spec, which they didn't
even want to do because they were in the middle.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Of recording their album in some studio in France.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
So they basically threw together four songs in a weekend
to get it over with those four songs, night Fever,
if I can't have you more than a woman, and
(04:13):
of course stay alive. Oh if that shit don't make
you want to get up and dance and I can't
help you, I can help you, brother.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
The reason I'm even going down this rabbit hole in
the first place is because apparently Saturday night Fever might
as well be a documentary of my parents' relationship in
their first few years.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I'll let my mom explain this.
Speaker 7 (04:47):
One one of our songs would come on, we run
out to the dance floor because we're so excited because
we can dance so good together, or like John Travolta.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
And I was gonna say, that was just what I
was thinking. I'm like, believe me. It was Saturday Night Fever.
Speaker 7 (05:03):
It was those what practice and then they would go
on the dance floor and people would just like and
people separate, move away and watch us dance.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
That's how it was.
Speaker 7 (05:15):
People weren't even throw money at us at one time
on the floor, but I think that.
Speaker 5 (05:19):
Was about they wanted you to take your clothes behind too.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
That other voice is my mom's childhood friend Kathy, who
was with my mom a lot during those disco days.
Speaker 7 (05:29):
So yeah, so we continued to do that like two, three,
maybe even four times a week, and it was just fun,
fun fun.
Speaker 8 (05:37):
Were you twenty, you were sneaking in, you were enuraged.
Speaker 7 (05:41):
Okay, I still got served.
Speaker 8 (05:42):
Okay, well, absolutely well because they always left the pretty girls.
And the way that I actually know Holly is I knew.
Speaker 5 (05:52):
Your grandma before I knew Hollie. And I will tell
you this.
Speaker 8 (05:55):
Your mother used to walk in with five dollars in
her pocket and she'd leave with five dollars.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
In her past.
Speaker 7 (06:01):
She never hit something, never, so.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
She never had to do anything.
Speaker 8 (06:06):
And one of the time when we were out, and
I have no idea why, but your father came up
and asked me to dance so and he was quite
the dancer.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
We had seen him on the floor.
Speaker 8 (06:19):
We had all commented, all three of us, and the
three of us meaning your grandma.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
So when we came off the dance floor, I said,
come with me. I have someone i'd like you to meet.
Speaker 8 (06:31):
And he's like really, And I said, Holly, this is Ken.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
This is how got dance your socks off.
Speaker 8 (06:39):
Basically, maybe this won't be exact words, and I pushed
her off her barstool.
Speaker 5 (06:43):
And as they say, the rest is history.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
That's amazing.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
So it's all your fault, Yes it is.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Let's see how my dad remembers it.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah, I was nineteen years old, was over at fucking
a disco called some other place. So I was sitting
at the bar. She was sitting at the end of
the bar, with her mother, of course, and I saw
her and I said, whoa nice little run up there,
I dug her, and I walked up to her just
started talking, and that's how we met. That's simple in
(07:14):
a bar, but that's how we met. Back then. We
didn't meet online like everybody meets online now. You actually
had to go out and do something back in my day,
I mean you actually had to give it some effort.
You actually had to walk and sit out and talk
to somebody looking in their eyesn't talk to him, you know,
all right?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Close enough? What happened next?
Speaker 7 (07:31):
You call me almost like the next day and asked
me out on a date. It took me about three
months though, to actually really really like the guy, because
that summer when I met Ken, I was also dating
this other guy from the complex I was living in
the guy that I was dating before I met Ken,
(07:51):
and somebody else. So it was like an awesome summer
for me.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
We don't know who my real father is.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
I was gonna say, okay, let's wrap this up please.
Speaker 7 (08:04):
He lived with some guys in an apartment. We would
go back to the apartment and there'd be people all
over the place, you know. So it was it wasn't
very romantic, but one night nobody was there and it
was just like he lit all these candles and he
had Pink Floyd playing on the record player.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
Back in the day, which every time he had song
comes in here.
Speaker 7 (08:30):
As I remember, he was wearing cutoff little jean shorts
and his wife beater tank top, and he had really
nice legs and he had long curly haired like to
(08:56):
his shoulders, and I don't know, he just looked really
sexy that night. And that's that's the night. After six months,
he proposed to me. And he was nineteen when I
was twenty, And of course I said yes, because I
(09:17):
guess when I fall in love, I fall really deep.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Even though Ken had put a ring on her finger,
they basically acted like kids who were dating. She was
still living at home with her mom. Ken had his
own apartment. They had their own separate lives and only
spent a few days a week together. Eventually, Holly started
hearing things from friends who had seen Ken out at
bars talking to other women, or rumors of huge parties
(09:47):
at his apartment that she didn't know about.
Speaker 7 (09:50):
Ken was always such a schmoozer. He was always flirting,
you know, He was a good looking guy, charismatic like
you say, and he just attracted women. And I was
a very jealous person and to this day, and that
was not good for me to have a guy like
(10:12):
that in my life. He would say, oh, you know,
I've never cheated, and you blah blah blah, you know,
and I just never believed him.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I asked my dad about this.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
He said, you were quite the shooze there. It was
quite the schmooz there. Yes, I was running her horroruse.
I was running a hohror house that was moving with
a hoards all day long. I was banging six at
a time, for Christ's sake. But I liked your mom though.
I liked your mom, but she wasn't. She wasn't. I
had to look at her as a whore. I looked
at her as a woman that I liked. You know,
it's a totally different thing, totally different, totally different. I'm
(11:00):
running hohhouses. I'm not running, but I'm a dormann. I
ended up runing them later, you know, eighteen, nineteen, twenty twenty,
you know, up till twenty eight, you know. So but
these girls, man, these these I mean, you know, we're
talking lost hardcore souls, you know, just lost someone, angels,
(11:23):
you know, just lost angels, you know, just lost and
drug addicted.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
During the years I filmed these conversations with my dad,
we spent hours and hours talking about all the sensational
mafia bullshit you would come to expect in a story
like this. But when he remembers the girls that worked
in the club, there's an immediate shift in his demeanor.
A calm washes over him as he smiles in memory
(11:51):
and begins diving into dozens of stories from his ten
years as a doorman and eventually manager of the clubs.
Many of these stories I will feature in later episodes
as they relate to the larger overall story. But first
I need to say what's on my mind. None of
this has been an easy pill to swallow for me.
The drugs and the murders make this whole thing bad enough,
(12:14):
But where I get the real pit in my stomach
is hearing him talk about his time in the clubs
with these girls, especially knowing my mom was very much
in the picture during these years. And as hard as
that is to digest, the fact is this is not
my story.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
It's Kenny's story.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
And I have a responsibility to let him tell it
the way he wants to tell it, And right now
he wants to talk about these girls.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
So that's what we're going to do. First up, Cindy.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
She was our local dominatrix. She was our club dominatrix.
She had all the gear, all the leather, all the outfits,
and boy, she would raise hell on these guys and
they loved her. Man one of the chiefs in Cook
County was one of her clients, and he'd come in
every every Tuesday or Thursday, that piece of shit. But man,
she would wail on them. It would wait on. We
(13:11):
had little peoples in the doors where we could watch
what was going on. Oh, she would let us know,
that's why I have in store for this guy. Then
we'd all run up to the door, be fighting for
the people, three of us, pushing each other out of
the way, trying to get to the people. All she
wheeled on these walker guys, and these guys just loved them,
loved them. Oh God, some funny shit. Man.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
There's Ming and Ling, the Chinese identical twins.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Ming and Lang. These girls had their feet wrapped when
they were young. Back in the day. It was a
Chinese custom to wrap the feet of the girls because
they thought small feet was a beautiful thing and China,
you guys can look this up, go online and look up.
But they were strictly business man, no drugs, no bullshit,
no partying, no talking to anybody, just business. And they
(14:00):
had a plan where all the other girls and guys
never had plans. So I admired them. I admired those.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Two and blonde they called Marilyn Marilyn.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Because she looked like Marilyn Monroe. That's what we call it.
I dated her for a while, nimphomaniac, purely sex. I
guess our relationship was. And you really have a lot
to talk about. Here's a kolkhead. But hey, it was
someone I was hanging out with for a while there,
you know. But she was She would have been your
typical She would have been your typical whrror. And there's
so many of them that came in and out throughout
(14:31):
the years, So I would classify her as just a
typical in and out girl, you know, in for a while,
working and off do something else.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
He goes on about a few more girls.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Big Tall Blonde had a couple of Hispanic girls.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
They are, and I can't help but notice that, in
its own twisted way, it sounds a lot like how
someone would tell stories about their crazy college years, you know,
the debauchery and stupidity of twenty year olds living together
with only one thing on their mind.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
It was just amazing. It was really an experience for me.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
For Kenny, who never finished high school, this club was
as close as he ever got to the university experience,
with a slightly different core curriculum underworld economics, the business
of sex, crooked cops and politicians, how to give a
beating and stay alive, keeping secrets one on one and
(15:22):
the girls a welcome distraction from the overwhelming dark reality
that once you're in the outfit, there's no getting out.
I want to be clear here, in no way do
I condone my father's infidelities to my mother as acceptable
in any way. I am merely trying to understand the
(15:45):
psychology behind his actions during this time. Proposing to my
mom at nineteen years old, while knowing exactly what kind
of lifestyle he lives is an extremely odd decision, which
he must have known would fail miserably. Why would he
do that? Why would he put himself and Holly through that.
What could he possibly have been thinking.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
When I wasn't working at the clubs, When I wasn't
working as shift, I went home, I went to my apartment,
and I was either dating your mother, or if I
wasn't dating your mother, I was completely I would completely
detach myself from work in that environment where everybody else
would hang around at the clubs and bullshit around Duco
Comparati party fart all is out of crap, and I
(16:30):
would just go home and I'd do my shift and
I would go home. But no, I kept myself completely separated,
especially when I was with your mother. Yeah, I could
do that. I just it wasn't a lifestyle for me.
It was life of wor those grease balls. It was
a fucking lifestyle. That's the style they wanted to live.
They wanted to live that way. I did not. I
don't know if I can make that any fucking clearer.
(16:52):
I did not want to be them, all right, that
wasn't my goal in life. So I kept myself completely
detached from those people.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
I asked a psychologist about this, and she broke it
down to what she calls a sense of normalcy. His
engagement to Holly was an attempt to establish a safe
space of love and stability that exists outside of the
dangerous and chaotic world he was living in, and by
doing so, he was laying the foundation that would eventually
fragment his life into two completely separate halves, both mentally
(17:28):
and physically. But as fascinating as all that sounds, the
reality is much easier said than done.
Speaker 7 (17:39):
He realized, at nineteen years old, what am I doing
being engaged? And I'm twenty. He's only nineteen, and it
has a lot to do with it. So anyway, you know,
maybe a year into the engagement he called it off.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Bill Curtis with Chicago's None for one News General two
the ten o'clock news.
Speaker 9 (18:13):
In Chicago, the connection between organized crime and prostitution was
the target of government sting. More from Ndpotter, the targets
involved were clubs and bars such as these, where officials
say sex was openly for sale, but the transactions were
carefully covered up.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
We would have to take bus every once in a while,
just so Cook County cops could, you know, show that
they're making some progress here, okay, when half the motherfuckers
were running their own horse on.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
The side out of our fucking clubs.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Anyway, that's another fucking story.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Well that is a story I would love to hear.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Well, we've been going for a while now and he's
getting a little hungry, so we decided to take a drive.
Of course, he starts talking in the car, so I
whip on my phone and hit record.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
So you know, these motherfuckers were so crooked, and we
owned them. We owned them. Here's the deal. You know,
they had to show numbers, so somebody had to catch
a bust every once in a while, all right, So
I caught two busts. If you dig deep enough and
it's there, the only thing you'll really see on me
is two arrests early eighties for the keeper of house
(19:25):
of prostitution, late seventy, early eighties, keeper house of prostitution.
That's all that's gonna pop on me. So you know,
we would arrange you's like, can okay, you're on take
one for the uron tonight, you're taking one for the team.
We'll take the bust and give us a call afterwards
(19:46):
and we'll come get you. So so I took two
of those and the girls would come with me, and
you know, a little party, everybody'd be laughing, having a
good time, and you know, but had to take the bust.
But here I am kind young, not thinking it's as
smart as I was, is as fucking dumb as I was,
because I would use my name, your real name, my
(20:07):
real name, and you know, I don't know came over me,
but I would use my real name while I'm hearing
all the girls, you know, using her club names.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
And so now that shit's on your record forever.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Yeah, so no, it's not my fucking record, and I
can't shake any But at this point, really it doesn't
make a difference.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Not many people have keeper of a house of constitution,
and I got two.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Keeper of a house of prostitution, not seeing any greeting
cards at the supermarket for that lovely badge of honor.
If only that was as bad as it got for Kenny,
maybe things would be different for all of us. But
unfortunately that's where this fairy tale ends. With several years
(21:09):
in the outfit under his belt and a few successful
busts to boot, Kenny was a rising star in the
crew and word was getting around that he could handle himself.
The club became his world, and he made friends with
the other guys who worked there.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
You know, it was like an office, you know, hanging
out around the water cooler, just bullshit, you know, that
type of thing. It were not any different. It was
just you know, there's not there's still human beings. They
may be animals some of them, and grease balls and
narcissists and sociopaths, but there's still human beings. You know.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
There was Billy the bartender, the.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Old, thick Southern accent. Cowboy, had the old belt, the
old belt, buckle, jeans, cowboy boots, lanky, tall, lanky and muscular,
a guy you do not want to fuck with. I
was afraid of this guy, and I was afraid of nobody.
This guy worried me because those tall, lanky ones. Boy,
(22:07):
there's a lot of time before that fist hits you.
We hit you in the right spot, that's it. You're
done for. So this guy kind of scared me. Plus
he was just strong, just a strong, dumb hillbilly, but
a great guy.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Sam, the younger brother of Ken's crew boss Jack Erickson
brother was.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
A good guy, you know, I just he didn't belong
in the business. I did like him a lot. He
wasn't like other all social paths, narcissistic maniacs that were
in the mob. A little overweight. Quiet wanted to be
like his brother, but he couldn't be like his brother,
so that kind of bothered him. Things went bad at
(22:47):
a club, he couldn't handle it. He just didn't belong
in a business. But that's you know, that's the way
he was.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Jack's brother and Danny in a low level doorman.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Dan was just a fat guy, loved to eat. Typical
grease ball, kind of unkept though for a grease ball.
A jovial, nice guy, you know. Yeah, he was a
door guy. Yeah, we were door guys. I would relieve
him and he would relieve me. You know, work a
morning shift, I'd relive a bit of nights. Or I'd
(23:18):
work a night shift. He'd relieve me on a graveyard shift. Yeah,
just something like that. We were leaving each other. So
he stay at talk, you know, chat, just like any job,
you stay and talk to your you know, it was
a job. You know, chat it up, a little bit,
mess around with the girls. You know, I have fun
with them, a little not sexual fun, but just goof around,
you know, just like an office.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
One night, while Danny was working the door, a gunman
broke in and robbed the cash box. Everybody was, of
course questioned, including Ken, who wasn't working that night and
had a credible alibi. Eventually it was discovered to be
an inside job.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Oh fuck, he did him as somebody. I can't remember
who the other person was. Why Danny was working. He
had someone come in and robbed the place while he
was working, you know, so of course Dan's gonna put
up his arms, take the money and leave. And that happened.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Why do you think Dan wanted to rob this place?
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Because they were all greedy bastards. Man, Listen, I was
taught by Jack pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered, and
that stuck with me, meaning, if you're making a living,
take a living. If you're making a good living, take
(24:38):
a living, don't be a hog, don't get greedy, you know,
be thankful for what you got, because you're gonna get slaughtered.
All these guys wanted more, more broads, more dope, more
fucking money, more power, more grease ball, more mob you know,
they wanted more, more, more and more and more. Very
(24:59):
ambitious people. I guess it's like in the private sector,
very ambitious people. But in our business, pigs get fat,
hogs get slaughtered, and he got slaughtered.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Danny had to go, and the powers that be felt
this was the perfect opportunity to see what young Kenny
was made of.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
I was there for the setup on the whack for Danny,
all right. I think we after he shift one night,
we just waited for him out in the parking lot,
and you know, we're all friends. He got in the
car and it was just one of those you know
you're gonna get whacked by your buddy type of thing,
(25:44):
you know. So anyway we got him. I got him,
and it was you know when when the guy's trust,
he was easy to get in the car. Let's go
to Denny's, have some breakfast boat next to you know,
he's getting his ass kicked, all right. And got him
in the car and drove him to uh one of
the chop shops and dropped him off there, and whatever
(26:07):
I did with him from there, I don't know. That
was the only time I ever had any emotion in
any hits, because everybody I hit was a fucking animal,
a degenerate psychopath sadistic narcissist that didn't We needed to
(26:36):
get rid of that seed. That seed is not good
for earth. That seed needed to be destroyed. That's how
bad these people were. So I never had any remorse.
The remorse I have now is that it's not my place.
It's not my place.
Speaker 10 (26:59):
It's not my place. That's what God does. That's not
what Ken does. That's God's job. It's not my job.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah, my head is spinning.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
I don't know who this man is, and it's now
obvious that I never did.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
But I want to know. I need to know.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Shut that shut up.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Next week on Crook County.
Speaker 9 (27:52):
You could see why he could be an enforcer. I'm blind, rage,
out of control, violent person.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
He was a freaking crazy man.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Let's Crook County is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
Tenderfoot TV in association with Common Enemy. All episodes are written, produced,
and hosted by me Kyle Tequila. Executive producers are Donald
Albright and Payne Lindsay. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set.
(28:32):
Main title song is called Crush by the band Starry Eyes.
End credit song is called No Show, also by the
band Starry Eyes.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Sound mix by Cooper Skinner.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Thank you to Orrin Rosenbaum and the excellent team at
UTA for their support and to my fearless attorney, Wendy
Bench for her guidance. To stay updated on all things
Crook County, follow us on all socials at Crook County Podcast,
or leave us a voicemail by visiting crookcountypodcast dot com.
For more podcasts like Crook County, search Tenderfoot TV on
(29:04):
your favorite podcast app or visit Tenderfoot dot tv.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Thanks for listening. The story continues next week. Awesome, that's
a Joe.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Set five.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
I Watch show.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Show Joe No
Speaker 3 (30:35):
No no no no no no no no no
You're listening to a tenor foot TV podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Girls Krook County is released weekly and brought to you
absolutely free.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
But if you want to hear the whole season right now,
it's available ad free on Tenderfoot Plus. For more information,
check out the show notes. Enjoy the episode.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
You're listening to Krook County. The views and opinions expressed
in this podcast are solely those of the individuals participating
in the podcast. This episode also contains subject matter, including
graphic depictions of violence, which may not be suitable for everyone.
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Previously on Crook County.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
I got recruited into the mob when I was seventeen
years old.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
After two years in the outfit, Kenny was on his
way up.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
He trusted me because I instilled money. I just did
my job. It's hard to find an honest guy in
the fucking outfit.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
He got a new boss.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
My crew boss was jack Jack Jackie Lama's eriksson.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
He ran the whorehouses, and Kenny got a new job
working the door at a brothel.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
A guy would come in, I'd introduce him to all
the girls by name. They would negotiate a deal. She
would hand me path the cake and then she would
be on her way.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
And then one night he met a girl I.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Think I was nineteen. I met her, she was twenty,
saw her sitting at the end of the bar. I
fell in love with her pretty quick.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
That pretty little redhead at the bar was my mother.
My name is Kyle Tequila. Welcome to Crook County.
Speaker 5 (01:50):
Yea.
Speaker 6 (02:06):
We would have to take bus every once in a while,
just so Cook County Cops, could, you know, show that
they're making some progress here.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So those are all arranged bus, Okay, Ken's your turn now, man.
When half the motherfuckers were running their own horse on
the side out of our fucking.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Clubs, episode four, Keeper of a House of Prostitution.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Coming from Paramount Pictures. And he's very good.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yeah, he's the best.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Amen, he's great. He's the king out there.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I'm watching the trailer to the nineteen seventy seven box
office monster Saturday Night Fever. Believe it or not, I've
actually never seen this movie, which obviously is a huge
mistake because it looks hilarious.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well, I mean, I could dance.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
To you, but you know, You're not a dream girl and.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Nothing ye a twenty three year old unknown actor named
John Travolta with his trademark Cleft Chin, strutting around Brooklyn
and Silk and Polyester, dancing up a storm every night
to what has become the second highest selling soundtrack of
all time, just behind the Bodyguard soundtrack.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Fuck that is a good song? Oh and how wild
is this?
Speaker 3 (03:37):
The Beg's didn't even write these cultural defining songs until
after the movie was filmed because the producers couldn't license
the original music, so they scrambled and begged the Begees
to write a few songs on spec, which they didn't
even want to do because they were in the middle.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Of recording their album in some studio in France.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
So they basically threw together four songs in a weekend
to get it over with those four songs, night Fever,
if I can't have you more than a woman, and
(04:13):
of course stay alive. Oh if that shit don't make
you want to get up and dance and I can't
help you, I can help you, brother.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
The reason I'm even going down this rabbit hole in
the first place is because apparently Saturday night Fever might
as well be a documentary of my parents' relationship in
their first few years.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I'll let my mom explain this.
Speaker 7 (04:47):
One one of our songs would come on, we run
out to the dance floor because we're so excited because
we can dance so good together, or like John Travolta.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
And I was gonna say, that was just what I
was thinking. I'm like, believe me. It was Saturday Night Fever.
Speaker 7 (05:03):
It was those what practice and then they would go
on the dance floor and people would just like and
people separate, move away and watch us dance.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
That's how it was.
Speaker 7 (05:15):
People weren't even throw money at us at one time
on the floor, but I think that.
Speaker 5 (05:19):
Was about they wanted you to take your clothes behind too.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
That other voice is my mom's childhood friend Kathy, who
was with my mom a lot during those disco days.
Speaker 7 (05:29):
So yeah, so we continued to do that like two, three,
maybe even four times a week, and it was just fun,
fun fun.
Speaker 8 (05:37):
Were you twenty, you were sneaking in, you were enuraged.
Speaker 7 (05:41):
Okay, I still got served.
Speaker 8 (05:42):
Okay, well, absolutely well because they always left the pretty girls.
And the way that I actually know Holly is I knew.
Speaker 5 (05:52):
Your grandma before I knew Hollie. And I will tell
you this.
Speaker 8 (05:55):
Your mother used to walk in with five dollars in
her pocket and she'd leave with five dollars.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
In her past.
Speaker 7 (06:01):
She never hit something, never, so.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
She never had to do anything.
Speaker 8 (06:06):
And one of the time when we were out, and
I have no idea why, but your father came up
and asked me to dance so and he was quite
the dancer.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
We had seen him on the floor.
Speaker 8 (06:19):
We had all commented, all three of us, and the
three of us meaning your grandma.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
So when we came off the dance floor, I said,
come with me. I have someone i'd like you to meet.
Speaker 8 (06:31):
And he's like really, And I said, Holly, this is Ken.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
This is how got dance your socks off.
Speaker 8 (06:39):
Basically, maybe this won't be exact words, and I pushed
her off her barstool.
Speaker 5 (06:43):
And as they say, the rest is history.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
That's amazing.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
So it's all your fault, Yes it is.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Let's see how my dad remembers it.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah, I was nineteen years old, was over at fucking
a disco called some other place. So I was sitting
at the bar. She was sitting at the end of
the bar, with her mother, of course, and I saw
her and I said, whoa nice little run up there,
I dug her, and I walked up to her just
started talking, and that's how we met. That's simple in
(07:14):
a bar, but that's how we met. Back then. We
didn't meet online like everybody meets online now. You actually
had to go out and do something back in my day,
I mean you actually had to give it some effort.
You actually had to walk and sit out and talk
to somebody looking in their eyesn't talk to him, you know,
all right?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Close enough? What happened next?
Speaker 7 (07:31):
You call me almost like the next day and asked
me out on a date. It took me about three
months though, to actually really really like the guy, because
that summer when I met Ken, I was also dating
this other guy from the complex I was living in
the guy that I was dating before I met Ken,
(07:51):
and somebody else. So it was like an awesome summer
for me.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
We don't know who my real father is.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
I was gonna say, okay, let's wrap this up please.
Speaker 7 (08:04):
He lived with some guys in an apartment. We would
go back to the apartment and there'd be people all
over the place, you know. So it was it wasn't
very romantic, but one night nobody was there and it
was just like he lit all these candles and he
had Pink Floyd playing on the record player.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
Back in the day, which every time he had song
comes in here.
Speaker 7 (08:30):
As I remember, he was wearing cutoff little jean shorts
and his wife beater tank top, and he had really
nice legs and he had long curly haired like to
(08:56):
his shoulders, and I don't know, he just looked really
sexy that night. And that's that's the night. After six months,
he proposed to me. And he was nineteen when I
was twenty, And of course I said yes, because I
(09:17):
guess when I fall in love, I fall really deep.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Even though Ken had put a ring on her finger,
they basically acted like kids who were dating. She was
still living at home with her mom. Ken had his
own apartment. They had their own separate lives and only
spent a few days a week together. Eventually, Holly started
hearing things from friends who had seen Ken out at
bars talking to other women, or rumors of huge parties
(09:47):
at his apartment that she didn't know about.
Speaker 7 (09:50):
Ken was always such a schmoozer. He was always flirting,
you know, He was a good looking guy, charismatic like
you say, and he just attracted women. And I was
a very jealous person and to this day, and that
was not good for me to have a guy like
(10:12):
that in my life. He would say, oh, you know,
I've never cheated, and you blah blah blah, you know,
and I just never believed him.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I asked my dad about this.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
He said, you were quite the shooze there. It was
quite the schmooz there. Yes, I was running her horroruse.
I was running a hohror house that was moving with
a hoards all day long. I was banging six at
a time, for Christ's sake. But I liked your mom though.
I liked your mom, but she wasn't. She wasn't. I
had to look at her as a whore. I looked
at her as a woman that I liked. You know,
it's a totally different thing, totally different, totally different. I'm
(11:00):
running hohhouses. I'm not running, but I'm a dormann. I
ended up runing them later, you know, eighteen, nineteen, twenty twenty,
you know, up till twenty eight, you know. So but
these girls, man, these these I mean, you know, we're
talking lost hardcore souls, you know, just lost someone, angels,
(11:23):
you know, just lost angels, you know, just lost and
drug addicted.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
During the years I filmed these conversations with my dad,
we spent hours and hours talking about all the sensational
mafia bullshit you would come to expect in a story
like this. But when he remembers the girls that worked
in the club, there's an immediate shift in his demeanor.
A calm washes over him as he smiles in memory
(11:51):
and begins diving into dozens of stories from his ten
years as a doorman and eventually manager of the clubs.
Many of these stories I will feature in later episodes
as they relate to the larger overall story. But first
I need to say what's on my mind. None of
this has been an easy pill to swallow for me.
The drugs and the murders make this whole thing bad enough,
(12:14):
But where I get the real pit in my stomach
is hearing him talk about his time in the clubs
with these girls, especially knowing my mom was very much
in the picture during these years. And as hard as
that is to digest, the fact is this is not
my story.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
It's Kenny's story.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
And I have a responsibility to let him tell it
the way he wants to tell it, And right now
he wants to talk about these girls.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
So that's what we're going to do. First up, Cindy.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
She was our local dominatrix. She was our club dominatrix.
She had all the gear, all the leather, all the outfits,
and boy, she would raise hell on these guys and
they loved her. Man one of the chiefs in Cook
County was one of her clients, and he'd come in
every every Tuesday or Thursday, that piece of shit. But man,
she would wail on them. It would wait on. We
(13:11):
had little peoples in the doors where we could watch
what was going on. Oh, she would let us know,
that's why I have in store for this guy. Then
we'd all run up to the door, be fighting for
the people, three of us, pushing each other out of
the way, trying to get to the people. All she
wheeled on these walker guys, and these guys just loved them,
loved them. Oh God, some funny shit. Man.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
There's Ming and Ling, the Chinese identical twins.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Ming and Lang. These girls had their feet wrapped when
they were young. Back in the day. It was a
Chinese custom to wrap the feet of the girls because
they thought small feet was a beautiful thing and China,
you guys can look this up, go online and look up.
But they were strictly business man, no drugs, no bullshit,
no partying, no talking to anybody, just business. And they
(14:00):
had a plan where all the other girls and guys
never had plans. So I admired them. I admired those.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Two and blonde they called Marilyn Marilyn.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Because she looked like Marilyn Monroe. That's what we call it.
I dated her for a while, nimphomaniac, purely sex. I
guess our relationship was. And you really have a lot
to talk about. Here's a kolkhead. But hey, it was
someone I was hanging out with for a while there,
you know. But she was She would have been your
typical She would have been your typical whrror. And there's
so many of them that came in and out throughout
(14:31):
the years, So I would classify her as just a
typical in and out girl, you know, in for a while,
working and off do something else.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
He goes on about a few more girls.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Big Tall Blonde had a couple of Hispanic girls.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
They are, and I can't help but notice that, in
its own twisted way, it sounds a lot like how
someone would tell stories about their crazy college years, you know,
the debauchery and stupidity of twenty year olds living together
with only one thing on their mind.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
It was just amazing. It was really an experience for me.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
For Kenny, who never finished high school, this club was
as close as he ever got to the university experience,
with a slightly different core curriculum underworld economics, the business
of sex, crooked cops and politicians, how to give a
beating and stay alive, keeping secrets one on one and
(15:22):
the girls a welcome distraction from the overwhelming dark reality
that once you're in the outfit, there's no getting out.
I want to be clear here, in no way do
I condone my father's infidelities to my mother as acceptable
in any way. I am merely trying to understand the
(15:45):
psychology behind his actions during this time. Proposing to my
mom at nineteen years old, while knowing exactly what kind
of lifestyle he lives is an extremely odd decision, which
he must have known would fail miserably. Why would he
do that? Why would he put himself and Holly through that.
What could he possibly have been thinking.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
When I wasn't working at the clubs, When I wasn't
working as shift, I went home, I went to my apartment,
and I was either dating your mother, or if I
wasn't dating your mother, I was completely I would completely
detach myself from work in that environment where everybody else
would hang around at the clubs and bullshit around Duco
Comparati party fart all is out of crap, and I
(16:30):
would just go home and I'd do my shift and
I would go home. But no, I kept myself completely separated,
especially when I was with your mother. Yeah, I could
do that. I just it wasn't a lifestyle for me.
It was life of wor those grease balls. It was
a fucking lifestyle. That's the style they wanted to live.
They wanted to live that way. I did not. I
don't know if I can make that any fucking clearer.
(16:52):
I did not want to be them, all right, that
wasn't my goal in life. So I kept myself completely
detached from those people.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
I asked a psychologist about this, and she broke it
down to what she calls a sense of normalcy. His
engagement to Holly was an attempt to establish a safe
space of love and stability that exists outside of the
dangerous and chaotic world he was living in, and by
doing so, he was laying the foundation that would eventually
fragment his life into two completely separate halves, both mentally
(17:28):
and physically. But as fascinating as all that sounds, the
reality is much easier said than done.
Speaker 7 (17:39):
He realized, at nineteen years old, what am I doing
being engaged? And I'm twenty. He's only nineteen, and it
has a lot to do with it. So anyway, you know,
maybe a year into the engagement he called it off.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Bill Curtis with Chicago's None for one News General two
the ten o'clock news.
Speaker 9 (18:13):
In Chicago, the connection between organized crime and prostitution was
the target of government sting. More from Ndpotter, the targets
involved were clubs and bars such as these, where officials
say sex was openly for sale, but the transactions were
carefully covered up.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
We would have to take bus every once in a while,
just so Cook County cops could, you know, show that
they're making some progress here, okay, when half the motherfuckers
were running their own horse on.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
The side out of our fucking clubs.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Anyway, that's another fucking story.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Well that is a story I would love to hear.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Well, we've been going for a while now and he's
getting a little hungry, so we decided to take a drive.
Of course, he starts talking in the car, so I
whip on my phone and hit record.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
So you know, these motherfuckers were so crooked, and we
owned them. We owned them. Here's the deal. You know,
they had to show numbers, so somebody had to catch
a bust every once in a while, all right, So
I caught two busts. If you dig deep enough and
it's there, the only thing you'll really see on me
is two arrests early eighties for the keeper of house
(19:25):
of prostitution, late seventy, early eighties, keeper house of prostitution.
That's all that's gonna pop on me. So you know,
we would arrange you's like, can okay, you're on take
one for the uron tonight, you're taking one for the team.
We'll take the bust and give us a call afterwards
(19:46):
and we'll come get you. So so I took two
of those and the girls would come with me, and
you know, a little party, everybody'd be laughing, having a
good time, and you know, but had to take the bust.
But here I am kind young, not thinking it's as
smart as I was, is as fucking dumb as I was,
because I would use my name, your real name, my
(20:07):
real name, and you know, I don't know came over me,
but I would use my real name while I'm hearing
all the girls, you know, using her club names.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
And so now that shit's on your record forever.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Yeah, so no, it's not my fucking record, and I
can't shake any But at this point, really it doesn't
make a difference.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Not many people have keeper of a house of constitution,
and I got two.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Keeper of a house of prostitution, not seeing any greeting
cards at the supermarket for that lovely badge of honor.
If only that was as bad as it got for Kenny,
maybe things would be different for all of us. But
unfortunately that's where this fairy tale ends. With several years
(21:09):
in the outfit under his belt and a few successful
busts to boot, Kenny was a rising star in the
crew and word was getting around that he could handle himself.
The club became his world, and he made friends with
the other guys who worked there.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
You know, it was like an office, you know, hanging
out around the water cooler, just bullshit, you know, that
type of thing. It were not any different. It was
just you know, there's not there's still human beings. They
may be animals some of them, and grease balls and
narcissists and sociopaths, but there's still human beings. You know.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
There was Billy the bartender, the.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Old, thick Southern accent. Cowboy, had the old belt, the
old belt, buckle, jeans, cowboy boots, lanky, tall, lanky and muscular,
a guy you do not want to fuck with. I
was afraid of this guy, and I was afraid of nobody.
This guy worried me because those tall, lanky ones. Boy,
(22:07):
there's a lot of time before that fist hits you.
We hit you in the right spot, that's it. You're
done for. So this guy kind of scared me. Plus
he was just strong, just a strong, dumb hillbilly, but
a great guy.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Sam, the younger brother of Ken's crew boss Jack Erickson
brother was.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
A good guy, you know, I just he didn't belong
in the business. I did like him a lot. He
wasn't like other all social paths, narcissistic maniacs that were
in the mob. A little overweight. Quiet wanted to be
like his brother, but he couldn't be like his brother,
so that kind of bothered him. Things went bad at
(22:47):
a club, he couldn't handle it. He just didn't belong
in a business. But that's you know, that's the way
he was.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Jack's brother and Danny in a low level doorman.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Dan was just a fat guy, loved to eat. Typical
grease ball, kind of unkept though for a grease ball.
A jovial, nice guy, you know. Yeah, he was a
door guy. Yeah, we were door guys. I would relieve
him and he would relieve me. You know, work a
morning shift, I'd relive a bit of nights. Or I'd
(23:18):
work a night shift. He'd relieve me on a graveyard shift. Yeah,
just something like that. We were leaving each other. So
he stay at talk, you know, chat, just like any job,
you stay and talk to your you know, it was
a job. You know, chat it up, a little bit,
mess around with the girls. You know, I have fun
with them, a little not sexual fun, but just goof around,
you know, just like an office.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
One night, while Danny was working the door, a gunman
broke in and robbed the cash box. Everybody was, of
course questioned, including Ken, who wasn't working that night and
had a credible alibi. Eventually it was discovered to be
an inside job.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Oh fuck, he did him as somebody. I can't remember
who the other person was. Why Danny was working. He
had someone come in and robbed the place while he
was working, you know, so of course Dan's gonna put
up his arms, take the money and leave. And that happened.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Why do you think Dan wanted to rob this place?
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Because they were all greedy bastards. Man, Listen, I was
taught by Jack pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered, and
that stuck with me, meaning, if you're making a living,
take a living. If you're making a good living, take
(24:38):
a living, don't be a hog, don't get greedy, you know,
be thankful for what you got, because you're gonna get slaughtered.
All these guys wanted more, more broads, more dope, more
fucking money, more power, more grease ball, more mob you know,
they wanted more, more, more and more and more. Very
(24:59):
ambitious people. I guess it's like in the private sector,
very ambitious people. But in our business, pigs get fat,
hogs get slaughtered, and he got slaughtered.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Danny had to go, and the powers that be felt
this was the perfect opportunity to see what young Kenny
was made of.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
I was there for the setup on the whack for Danny,
all right. I think we after he shift one night,
we just waited for him out in the parking lot,
and you know, we're all friends. He got in the
car and it was just one of those you know
you're gonna get whacked by your buddy type of thing,
(25:44):
you know. So anyway we got him. I got him,
and it was you know when when the guy's trust,
he was easy to get in the car. Let's go
to Denny's, have some breakfast boat next to you know,
he's getting his ass kicked, all right. And got him
in the car and drove him to uh one of
the chop shops and dropped him off there, and whatever
(26:07):
I did with him from there, I don't know. That
was the only time I ever had any emotion in
any hits, because everybody I hit was a fucking animal,
a degenerate psychopath sadistic narcissist that didn't We needed to
(26:36):
get rid of that seed. That seed is not good
for earth. That seed needed to be destroyed. That's how
bad these people were. So I never had any remorse.
The remorse I have now is that it's not my place.
It's not my place.
Speaker 10 (26:59):
It's not my place. That's what God does. That's not
what Ken does. That's God's job. It's not my job.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah, my head is spinning.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
I don't know who this man is, and it's now
obvious that I never did.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
But I want to know. I need to know.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Shut that shut up.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Next week on Crook County.
Speaker 9 (27:52):
You could see why he could be an enforcer. I'm blind, rage,
out of control, violent person.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
He was a freaking crazy man.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Let's Crook County is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
Tenderfoot TV in association with Common Enemy. All episodes are written, produced,
and hosted by me Kyle Tequila. Executive producers are Donald
Albright and Payne Lindsay. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set.
(28:32):
Main title song is called Crush by the band Starry Eyes.
End credit song is called No Show, also by the
band Starry Eyes.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Sound mix by Cooper Skinner.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Thank you to Orrin Rosenbaum and the excellent team at
UTA for their support and to my fearless attorney, Wendy
Bench for her guidance. To stay updated on all things
Crook County, follow us on all socials at Crook County Podcast,
or leave us a voicemail by visiting crookcountypodcast dot com.
For more podcasts like Crook County, search Tenderfoot TV on
(29:04):
your favorite podcast app or visit Tenderfoot dot tv.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Thanks for listening. The story continues next week. Awesome, that's
a Joe.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Set five.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
I Watch show.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Show Joe No
Speaker 3 (30:35):
No no no no no no no no no
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Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!