LEG-BREAKERS, STREET DENTISTS AND ENFORCERS

LET’S SAY YOU RUN A SMALL LOAN-SHARKING ENTERPRISE. NOTHING BIG — YOU’VE GOT A TERRITORY OF THREE TO FOUR CITY BLOCKS.

- MARK HATMAKER

Having such a small space, welshers, or those who don’t pay back, can really eat into your profit margin. Money isn’t free, and those who come to you agree to your off-the-books terms. If they welsh, you have no recourse to legal action: no garnishing of wages, no extended court wrangling. All you have recourse to is …

Option A: Chalk it up in the loss column.

Option B: Enforce the debt. That is, collect and/or encourage a “payment plan.”

Common knowledge holds that welshers will be visited by enforcers. These enforcers have become known as leg-breakers; you can imagine where that rep came from. All this has played out in numerous gangster scenes on celluloid:

Enforcer: Tony says you been duckin’ him.

Welsher: No, I was just a way for a while, that’s all. I mean, I got the money. It’s just that. …

Enforcer: It’s too late for that! Now we gotta break your legs.

Welsher: Aiiieeeeee! Turns out this is wrong historically and economically.