King of Pain

Paul Silverman's face is all over Kansas City -- beaming over late-night TV, rolling by on the sides of metro buses, taking up three full pages in the Yellow Pages. In one ad, Silverman is dressed in a gaudy royal getup: a silver cardboard crown and a red-green-and-white-striped suit with flared sleeves and puffy shoulders. With raised eyebrows, a gleam in his eyes, a slightly open mouth and a finger pointing straight out, the skinny, gray-bearded man looks eager to deliver some really good news.

Even if your credit is wrecked, you're recently divorced and you just declared bankruptcy, he will give you a loan.

"Call the King of Kash," the ad urges. You can get approved in ten minutes with no credit check. You can take out $100 or $3,000 or any amount in between. You don't need to sign over your gold chain or your engagement ring as collateral. In fact, Silverman will pay you to take out a loan from him. In a half-page Thrifty Nickel ad offering "Instant Cash," Silverman, done up to look like Andrew Jackson, stares out from a $20 bill, which is what he'll give you to sign on as a first-time borrower.

Silverman's ads tout sixteen businesses at eight locations all over the metro -- several in Kansas City, as well as in Gladstone, Independence, Grandview and Raymore. The Bob's Loan Company ad shows a photo of a stogie-sucking bald man with $10 bills sticking out of the pocket of his plaid sport coat. The ad for Uncle Bucks features a cartoon cowboy shouting "Hey Buckaroos! Need Xtra Cash?" In the ad for Dr. Dollar, a grinning whitecoat holds up a stethoscope with a dollar sign on it.

In case anyone might have trouble finding Silverman's main office, at 83rd Street and Wornall Road, a giant yellow billboard across the street -- with his picture on it -- points the way with a big red arrow. Outside the office, a sign reads "A-1 Premium Acceptance" -- one of three business names Silverman has registered at that location. (He also calls it the King of Kash, Brookside Loans and Signature Loans Inc., according to records on file at the Missouri secretary of state's office.) A small sign next to a mailbox instructs, "Drop Payments Here."

One Wednesday morning this summer, a wispy 71-year-old woman emerged from the office, squinting in the sunlight. A retired phone operator for the Jackson County Courthouse, Lucille Mallory said she had gone inside to pay off a balance of $89 that her daughter owed.

"They kept sending notices to the house," she said, "and I didn't want them to keep saying we owed money no more, so I came and paid it."

Mallory told the Pitch she had taken out other loans from the King of Kash after seeing his ads in the Thrifty Nickel -- she once borrowed $100 so she could gamble at the casinos. "It was so I could have a little extra cash to take to the boats. I only take out money if I really, really want to do something," she said as she opened the door of a waiting friend's car.

Then a woman drove up, two fuzzy, pink hearts dangling from her rearview mirror. Shouldering a hefty backpack, she walked into the office, traversed the stained, gray carpet and slumped in a seat along the wall. She looked glum as she jangled her keys.

The room smelled of Lysol, mildew and bubble gum; its only noise was the ringing of phones and the constant whirring of an adding machine. Three windows were labeled: Loans, Loans, Collections. A clerk dressed in a baggy blue sweatshirt stood behind the first window, watching while a pale woman in shorts and a tank top rested her bony elbows on the counter.

A phone was ringing on the desk behind the clerk. "Yes, we have a branch office on North Oak Trafficway, right next to the Harley-Davidson shop," the clerk told the caller. At the next window, a large clerk with a gold tooth popped her gum while she waited on a slender man in a neat, striped shirt and Dockers, a cell phone clipped to his belt. He was taking out a new loan and asked the clerk to check the balances of his other loans. "You owe $90.32 on one, and you're on your third payment," she told him, pointing at a computer screen. "Then on these three, you owe $64.16 each, and you're on your tenth payment."

Finally, the person behind the second window called the waiting woman in the sweat suit. She made a $60 payment, then hurried out, receipt in hand, toward her newish green Dodge Stratus. She told the Pitch she had chosen the King of Kash because his ad caught her eye.

"He had the biggest ad in the phone book," the 24-year-old said, shrugging. She had taken out a loan of $150 in August because her job as a security guard didn't pay much and she'd come up short when it was time to make a car payment. "I'll end up paying $15 for each $100 I take out," she explained. She said she planned to pay off the rest of the money she owed next month. "They tell you you're supposed to take the loan out for a year, but then the APR ends up being something ridiculous like 400 percent. And I'm definitely not stupid enough to do that."