Cars whizzed by as “Billie” walked slowly along sun-baked U.S. 72 in Athens. She was tired, sweaty, dirty and alone.

Finally, after more than an hour in the 95-degree Alabama sun, a man drove by in a pickup truck and made a U-turn. He pulled up next to Billie, rolled down his window and said, “I haven’t seen you around here before. You from here?”

“No,” Billie said. “I’m from Georgia.”

He asked her how much she charged for a particular sex act.

Billie quoted him a price of $15.

He complained that he only had $7.

She thought he was a cheapskate, but she agreed.

Mr. Big Spender got more than he bargained for.

Billie was a decoy prostitute working for the Athens Police Department.

And she arrested this unlucky bargain shopper for solicitation of prostitution.

He had to pay a bail bondsman $75 and $150 to post a $500 bond. And, he had to pay $160 to get his truck out of impound. Once convicted, he had to pay a $500 fine plus court costs.

Responding to citizen complaints, Athens police launched the decoy project a couple of months ago in an effort to curb prostitution and other crimes such as drug trafficking. They hit the main roadways and hotels and motels.

Billie and another female officer are the two female decoys. The department also has male officers who decoy as johns — the street name for a man soliciting prostitution.

“We have made some impact already,” Billie said, while visiting the Police Department earlier this week. “I can already see fewer prostitutes along the streets where we were seeing them.”

They have made 13 arrests so far. Even better, the arrests have given them information on a lot of other crimes such as thefts and drug sales.

“We aren’t targeting just prostitution,” Billie said. “I just walk along the road and if someone stops and asks for sex, I’m a prostitute. If someone stops and asks me if I want to buy drugs, then I’m a buyer. If someone asks me if I know if I can get some drugs for them, then I’m a runner.”

You wonder how the decoys prepare for the sting operations. For example, what do they wear? Where do they shop for outfits?

Forget all you have learned about prostitution from Hollywood.

In Athens, you won’t find hookers strutting their stuff in spike heels, Spandex leggings, glittering halters, black vinyl miniskirts or thigh-high boots.

There’s nothing hot about the clothes they wear — usually T-shirts, sweatpants, blue jeans, and comfortable shoes.

“You’re not going to see me in knee-high boots and Spandex,” Billie said. For one thing, such gear would be impractical because the decoys walk so much, sometimes along bumpy, grassy roadsides and ditches. For another, they would look out of place.

“Their clothes look like they’ve been wearing them a few days,” Billie said.

“They probably have,” said Police Captain Tracy Harrison. “They sleep at one house one night, then another house another night, then put on the same clothes and hit the street again,” he said.

Between hooking and sleeping, most of them buy and use their drug of choice, whether it is crack cocaine or methamphetamine or something else.

“It ain’t ‘Pretty Woman’—far from it,” said Billie, referring to a Julia Roberts movie of 15 years ago about a beautiful, street-wise hooker who enchants a millionaire Richard Gere.

The johns they hope to lure aren’t interested in wardrobes.

They have a hunger, and the only cure? Sex with a prostitute that they pick up off a roadside, in a parking lot, at a motel.

The johns come from every walk of life – blue-collar workers to well-paid businessmen, both single and married, Billie said.

Why not just pick up a woman at a bar or a porno magazine at a convenience store?

“I don’t claim to understand men,” Billie said.

“They do it for the excitement,” the captain said.

The officers involved in the project have a sense of humor and some amusing anecdotes about the assignment, but they take the work seriously.

They see prostitution stings as a gateway to other crimes – shoplifting, theft, burglary and drug sales. The prostitute decoys have helped them make felony drug cases.

“The prostitute acts as a middle man for customers and drug dealers,” said Detective Sgt. Trevor Harris. “If they can’t get a prostitution deal, they’ll go get drugs (become a runner) and then pinch off some of the drugs and keep it.”

You wonder how Billie and the other decoy know what to charge for various sex acts.

There’s no union-sanctioned rate schedule.

Sometimes $20 for the works. Sometimes more. Less for certain other sex acts. In short, it doesn’t pay well. But, you can set your own hours, which is great when your drug addiction keeps you from taking a regular job.

What if Billie gets an unacceptably low offer?

It doesn’t matter. She’s a cop and she’s going to arrest him anyway.

You wouldn’t think the streetwalker Billie and the officer Billie were the same woman. In real life, Billie is striking, outgoing, straightforward and confident beyond her years.

She and the other female officer act as decoys while other officers wait for the signal to move in for the arrest or abort the mission and come to the rescue.

Billie mentions that she packs a 9 mm handgun at all times, so you wonder what real rescue she could need.

“You never know,” she said.

Although she has never been injured, she said a john could become violent or hold a gun to her head as he brokers the deal.

It is nearly impossible to quell the impulse to ask if her mother knows what she’s doing.

She does. She called Billie recently and jokingly asked how much money she made the night before. So, she’s okay with it.

One of the most surprising aspects of being a decoy is the fatigue.

“I don’t see how they do it,” she said. “When I walk for several hours and the heat index is 102 degrees, I am tired. When I go home, I’m ready to sleep.”

So, why do they do it?

“They’re not doing it to support their four kids,” Billie said. “Most of it is to support a drug habit.”

Arrest may be their best hope.

“If they go to jail and get off the drugs, you won’t see them again,” Harris said, adding that he has seen prostitutes as old as 50 still hooking.

After several months as decoys, Billie said both officers agree on one thing, it’s a terrible life.

“While we are out there, we feel very degraded, low,” Billie said. “We feel very lonely.”

Passing motorists sometimes yell vulgarities or make lewd suggestions, she said.

“It’s depressing,” Billie said. “I’m not saying I feel sorry for them. Everyone has a choice. But it’s lonely. For a while, you feel like you are the only person in the world.”