WEST ALLIS, Wis. — WEST ALLIS, Wis. - They come with their gold rings and tarnished dreams.
Some haul in televisions the size of small refrigerators. Others toss down belt sanders and electric saws and quickly slink away in battered pickup trucks.
And they make their way to Scott Moline, the guy you go to when even your mother won't lend you a $20 bill.
Moline is the owner-operator of Moline Jewelry and Lincoln Loan. He's a pawnbroker.
One side of his business is running a jewelry store. The other side is overseeing what he calls "a collateral-based loan company." People bring their collateral and he gives them the loan.
"Everything I do is scrutinized by both state and local government," he says. "They give you the rules, you play by the rules and you're fine. It's not like the movies, the seedy underworld pawnshop. Everything is computerized."
Business is good, he says.
It's not the state of the economy, though goodness knows Americans are stretched by $4-a-gallon-gas. People get in a jam, go out on a binge, he says. After they make a financial mistake, they need a quick financial fix to make it to the next payday or next big score.
"Someone who brings in a 40-inch LCD TV is not a poor person," Moline says. "They made a poor decision."
Moline, 40, has survived what he calls "the school of hard knocks." A pickup truck accident as a teen left him paraplegic. He studied horology, the science of measuring time, became a watch repairman, opened a jewelry store and in 1994 added the loan business.
"It's not something you can teach," he says of his trade.
Moline's greatest skill appears to be his ability to read people, their motivations and their actions, whether he's taking a pass on goods that might have been stolen - most teens don't own a Rolex - or quickly foiling an armed robbery attempt; it's happened twice.
Apparently, the would-be crooks were surprised when Moline fired off rounds from a pistol.
"The Glock, that's my insurance policy," he says, adding that his premises are covered by more than a dozen security cameras that operate 24/7.
Moline says his business doesn't depend on normal economic cycles. There are some people who always need cash, especially people who gamble, whether it's plunking down money on a lottery ticket or throwing coins into a slot machine.
