In gold chains and driving a white Jaguar, Jeff Friedman travels in style through a world of deception and fear. Under cover of night, he is out there on the streets--an unseen marauder looking for automobiles. He breaks in, jiggers the ignition, disables the alarms--whatever it takes--and scrams.

On good weeks, he and his underlings get away with 50 to 75 cars--Porsches, Ferraris, you name it. He can get most cars in less than half a minute; if he takes longer, the risks soar like a bad balloon payment. Three times Friedman has been shot at. Three other times he has had irrational men put a gun to his head.

"It's rough . . . really dangerous," says the breezy, fast-talking Friedman, 42, who is not a thief but a veteran auto repossessor--a "repo man." The task involves reclaiming vehicles from buyers who fall behind in their payments.

In car-crazy California, the job is a legal means of livelihood for no fewer than 560 state-certified agents, not to mention untold numbers of illegal, unlicensed operators who also scramble for orders.

Los Angeles, the reputed "repo capital" of the world, now supports 65 repossession companies employing about 160 repossessors, while Orange County, with 23 companies and 73 employees, ranks second statewide. Riverside and San Diego counties rank third and fourth.

To those in the gritty subculture, auto repossession has always been a difficult road. Reviled by consumers, barred by California law from carrying weapons, repo men do the necessary dirty work of banks and car dealerships, using only the pocket tools of criminals and the cunning of spies.

Recently, however, the hard-nosed business has fallen on particularly hard times. A sagging economy and a dramatic increase in inner-city violence have reduced profits while escalating the dangers. More than ever, repo men such as Jake Worshim, 49, who logs 2,500 miles a week in his tow truck, find themselves weighing a $290 repossession fee against the chances of winding up in a hospital, or worse.

"I consider it like carrying a rattlesnake around in a wet bag," Worshim says of the trade. One wrong move and "it's going to bite you. You've got to be careful. One mistake in this business can be bad."

The economic woes have come during a recessionary time when many would expect repossessors to be humming along at full throttle. The reason they aren't: With car sales down, banks and other lenders have become unusually lenient, willing to tolerate tardy payments or to rewrite loans to avoid ordering repossessions.