He won't reveal his income -- bail enforcement is a cash business -- but notes, "My wife drives a BMW and I have two Harley-Davidsons. I do very, very well."
Unlike Britain, America has operated a system of commercial bail since the middle of the 19th century. It is a way of life that could be on the wane as some US states outlaw the practice of bounty hunting, and courts in some jurisdictions assume the role of bail bonds, removing the profit incentive for the hunter.
Until then, however, there will be commercial bondsmen, who will post bail for the accused, usually once they produce evidence of collateral: a house, a car. Sometimes, they can't, and that is where the bond business becomes risky. If the accused fails to turn up for the court date, the bond agent becomes liable for the sum posted.
That is where the bounty hunter comes in, tracking down the fugitive for a typical fee of 10 percent of the value of the bail bond.
They have become a sort of institution in America -- although a largely unregulated one. Nowadays, 20 percent of America's felony defendants jump bail. Almost all are eventually brought back for trial -- not by the police, but by the bounty hunters who track down 88 percent of the fugitives who eventually turn up in court.
That, argues MacLean, shows that the police are either too uninterested or too overburdened to track down bail skips -- particularly those charged with minor offensives. He says the bounty hunters make America safer, preventing criminals from bringing down neighborhoods by returning to their old haunts, and they save the taxpayer money.
That version of the dogged, hardworking investigator has yet to make any imprint on the popular impression of bounty hunters as larger than life romantic figures -- embodied by Chapman's credo of "born on a mountain, raised in a cave, arresting fugitives is all I crave."
The day-to-day work of real bounty hunting is far less glamorous. It starts, say the bounty hunters, with a phone call. The vast majority of people who fail to turn up for court are afraid, or absent-minded, says Solomon Hamilton, a bail agent in the Washington area. Once alerted, most come in of their own accord, although he readily admits to using subterfuge.
"It's a lot better to fool them in than to fight them," he says. "Make the initial phone call, tell them a lie. That's what I tell my people: lie, lie, lie. Bribe, bribe, bribe. Do not pull a gun. Do not fight. Lie."
But almost always -- despite the histrionics of men such as Chapman and the efforts at professionalism of men such as MacLean -- in the end it comes down to the most basic of tactics: tapping the fugitives friends and relations to see who is willing to talk.
"There is always a Judas," says MacLean. "There is always somebody somewhere doesn't like you. My job isn't to find you, my job is to find the person who doesn't like you. Nine times out of 10, you don't even know who that person is."
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