Hunting for Humans : When a posse of bounty hunters gets together to polish up the techniques and etiquette of their chosen profession, they learn several useful things. Such as don’t set your prisoner on fire. And never, ever volunteer to be squirted with Mace.

In a room full of shaved heads, handlebar mustaches and Harley-Davidson belt buckles the size of footballs, Bob Burton is going over the finer points of hunting humans.

Make no mistake, he tells the audience, “there’s nothing like the thrill of putting your hands on a total stranger and telling him he’s under arrest.” But remember these simple guidelines:

* When transporting your prisoner by plane, it usually isn’t a good idea to carry your gun through airport metal detectors.

* Always accompany your prisoner to the restroom but, while there, try not to stare.

* Never, ever, set your prisoner on fire.

Burton, 55, knows his subject. A former mercenary and insurance salesman, he’s America’s preeminent professional bounty hunter. He’s also president of the G. Gordon Liddy Institute in Miami, which trains bounty hunters and bodyguards.

Here at the Sandman Inn, Burton is leading what is billed as California’s first convention and training seminar for bounty hunters, would-be bounty hunters and “anyone else with an inquiring mind and handcuffs.”

About 30 people have paid $315 each to attend the weekend event. And it’s a wild ride.

At the door to the seminar, a uniformed security guard and two Shamu-sized plainclothesmen stand sentry. Inside, CNN, NBC and Soldier of Fortune magazine try to interview class members who refuse to reveal their names or allow themselves to be photographed.

And, by the end of the first evening, one student has been Maced, others are peeling off clothes to display tattoos and everyone is singing the Marine Corps hymn.

*

The seminar has convened Friday afternoon in a conference room by the motel pool. Burton begins with an overview of the 1872 Supreme Court decision that allows private citizens to arrest people who jump bail, then moves into subsequent annoying legal developments. Such as the one about shooting at an unarmed fleeing fugitive. It makes the person easier to catch, but it happens to be illegal.

A better way to subdue suspects, he suggests, is Chemical Mace. For a demonstration, Burton introduces John Ludvigson, Mr. Tear-Gas of the Newport Beach Police Department. After explaining the history of Mace (ancient Chinese warriors burned vats of oil and cayenne peppers outside walled cities before invading), Ludvigson recruits a volunteer from the audience and spritzes him in the parking lot.

As the human guinea pig’s eyes, throat and sinuses saute, he appears easily arrestable. But Mace turns out to have at least two drawbacks: First, it doesn’t always work. Second, some brands contain an alcohol-based aerosol which, if used in conjunction with a Taser gun, could “light the prisoner up like a Roman candle,” Ludvigson says. Sadly, under current law, setting a suspect ablaze is frowned upon by authorities.

But other methods are available, Burton says, from consulting astrological charts to impersonating a rabbi. Details, however, must wait until Saturday. It’s late and Burton has an appointment down the block.

The group adjourns to O’Billy Bob’s bar, which Burton is christening “the official bounty hunters saloon of the West Coast.”

It’s a good choice. Owned by Bill Pollock, a towering ex-Navy SEAL, the bar’s walls are decked with autographed pictures of Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Watergate conspirator Liddy and the Santa Barbara sheriff’s bomb squad.

A banner hangs from the ceiling: “Welcome Bounty Hunters!” But when Burton’s entourage arrives, the bar looks more like a gathering of the Worldwide Wrestling Federation: Regular patrons disappear amid a mass of bulging biceps, flowing manes and rings the size of avocado pits.

As a fake Frank Sinatra sings “New York, New York” on the saloon’s karaoke system, the group is joined by what might best be described as bounty-hunter groupies--a knot of women who latch onto Burton, a Santa Barbarian before he moved to Florida. Also in the crowd: a former state Assembly candidate, a onetime local beauty queen who became an NRA sharpshooter, and a helicopter pilot from the aborted hostage-rescue attempt of Jimmy Carter’s presidency.

Things get really strange, however, when the group moves down the street to the Cattlemen’s Restaurant and Saloon--and continues its consumption of distilled and fermented liquids. In one corner, two Marines from the class begin arm wrestling and later remove their shirts to show off tattoos. In another, Ludvigson and several human repo men practice chokeholds on each other.

Burton, clutching a beer, says “this is the wildest class I’ve ever had,” then leads everyone in a sluggish chorus of: “From the halls of Montezuma/to the shores of Tripoli. . .”

Student Rich Kluck, meanwhile, is still laughing about the guy who volunteered for the hit of pepper Mace earlier in the evening: “He should consider another profession. If he’ll let someone gas him to see what it feels like, he’ll probably let somebody shoot him or stab him to see what that feels like, too. . . . He must be nuts.”

And what does Kluck do for a living? Well, last year during the Los Angeles riots, he says, he drove into South-Central to retrieve safes from buildings while they were being looted.

Seven hours later, the present and future “fugitive apprehension specialists” reconvene over croissants, fruit and copious amounts of coffee. Some inspect a table in the conference room where bounty-hunter books, shirts, patches and music (“The Bounty Man: A Tracker’s Song”) are on sale.

The class includes a 30-year-old radio repairman from San Jose, a 60-year-old nuclear power plant guard from Hanover, Wash., a bevy of ex-cops, some private eyes and a 23-year-old Camp Pendleton Marine who likes the idea of chasing crooks but hates the idea of dressing in policeman’s garb: “I’ve worn the best uniform. I can’t wear the funny-looking uniform.”

Only one student is female--half of a husband-wife bounty team from Southern California. Women are rare among the nation’s 50 to 100 full-time and several thousand part-time hunters, Burton says, but not for lack of useful skills: “The bounty hunter’s deadliest weapon is the telephone, and people are much more trusting (and willing to release information) when the voice at the other end is female.”

Burton, who claims roughly 3,200 arrests in his career, says he regularly enlists women to pose as Western Union operators, government employees or lottery-notification officials in an effort to pinpoint a bail-jumper’s whereabouts or lure him out of hiding.

He also uses surveillance, disguises and snitches. “You’re not looking for the fugitive so much as you’re looking for the Judas,” he says.

Family members and in-laws are the most likely traitors. Blood relatives sometimes cooperate when the bounty hunter threatens to blanket the neighborhood with wanted posters featuring their loved one’s face and the family’s good name, Burton says. And in-laws usually help because they resent some guy running their poor, innocent daughter afoul of the law.

If guilt is a problem, Burton helps them get over it with his special snitch fund, pulling out a $50 or $100 bill. It works miracles, he says, and he can write it off every April.

Another practice is learning the fugitive’s habits and tastes. “People are creatures of habit,” Burton explains. Even if they move or change jobs, their lifestyle and line of work usually stay the same. A house painter who likes Chinese restaurants, fast cars and watching Monday night football at the local bar will continue those patterns wherever he goes, Burton says.

If all that fails to produce a lead, he resorts to the supernatural: “I used a psychic once. And it worked.” Another renowned bounty hunter, the late Ralph Thorson--whose career inspired Steve McQueen’s character in the 1980 film “The Hunter”--relied on astrological charts.

Anything it takes, Burton says. Toward that end, he has impersonated rabbis, bikers and door-to-door salesmen to get his man--or woman (about 15% of all cases involve females).

On another occasion, he disguised himself as a Jehovah’s Witness. Bounty hunters are allowed to break into someone’s house, according to federal case law, but only if they know the suspect is inside. Burton was uncertain. So he got a stack of Watchtower publications from a real Jehovah’s Witness, asked a woman friend along and together they marched up and down the block ringing doorbells.

Sure enough, when they reached the bail-jumper’s house, the “skip” answered the door and Burton made the bust. Skip is bounty hunter lingo for bail-skipper. Other terms include “troll” (because trolls, like bail-jumpers, hide underneath bridges and in other strange locales), “FTA” (as in “failure to appear” in court) and, ominously, “prey.”

Most arrests--94% by Burton’s estimate--happen without incident.

“But you damn well better be prepared for (the other 6%),” he warns.

Ray Hawkins, a 39-year veteran attending the conference from Nipomo, says he’s been shot, stabbed, slugged and run over with a car. Burton has endured almost as much, plus he once had a female prisoner in the back of his van who kept slinging fecal matter at him from a portable toilet.

Beige or white vans are the bounty hunter’s vehicle of choice for surveillance and prisoner transport. Some are customized with hidden periscopes and magnetic “Acme Plumbing” or “Joe’s Gardening” signs to slap on the doors for undercover work. Vans also offer plenty of room for police scanners, listening devices and--naturally--guns.

Nearly every bounty hunter packs heat--often a shotgun because concealed weapons are illegal. The Ithaca Bear Stopper is particularly intimidating, some bounty hunters say. But others have devised alternative ways to disarm a felon.

One Burton favorite is the “chocolate sandwich.” Whenever he encounters a skip face to face, he starts with a little small talk, then suddenly poses the question: “Do you like chocolate sandwiches?” The incongruity of the remark breaks the suspect’s concentration “for a nanosecond,” Burton says, enough time for him to make a move on the man.

After cuffing and carefully frisking the skip--some of whom have been known to secret blades inside cigarette lighters, lipstick tubes and hat bands--the prisoner is delivered to authorities. In California, bounty hunters must return a bail-jumper within 48 hours of arrest.

Nationwide, bounty hunters make about 25,000 arrests a year, Burton estimates. In return, they can expect to be paid at least 10% of the bail amount, plus expenses. Fees go up as the deadline for the fugitive’s return draws closer. In California, bail is forfeited by the bail-bond agent if the fugitive isn’t recaptured within six months after failing to appear in court.

Burton says a typical case takes about 20 hours of investigation. Average fee from the bail bondsman: $500.

LAPD Detective John Petievich, of the department’s fugitive detail, says bounty hunters often have better resources and information than police for tracking down bail-skippers: “We work with them quite a lot. . . . We haven’t had any problems.”

But some law-enforcement officers resent their civilian counterparts because they usually earn more money than cops and don’t have to follow the same rules, Burton says.

Government bureaucrats also have mixed feelings about bounty hunters, he says: “Publicly, they want the fugitives caught, but in reality they need the money (from the forfeited bail).” Burton says it can add up to millions.

Not surprisingly, then, sometimes there’s trouble.

Bounty hunters are occasionally busted on such charges as brandishing firearms, threatening witnesses, impersonating police or beating up skips. Others have gotten into jams operating in foreign countries or in the three states--Oregon, Illinois and Kentucky--where bounty hunting is illegal.

Burton acknowledges the profession attracts its share of mavericks and Rambos.

Hawkins, the Nipomo bounty man, suggests his cohorts should be licensed by the state and learn the trade as apprentices: “There are lots of idiots in the business.” He says courses such as Burton’s barely scratch the surface of what a bounty hunter needs to know.

For those who get past the obstacles, however, it can be a lucrative career.

The average full-time bounty hunter earns $50,000 a year, Burton says, and some pull down nearly six figures.

But money isn’t the only reward.

For Bob Buchner of San Diego, there’s another joy--the chase. A former big-game hunter who used to spend days tracking a single lion through the desert, Buchner says he got bored chasing animals:

“After so many kills, the thrill went away. But a human thinks differently. Tracking a man--when you have no footprint in the sand--is . . . something that makes your adrenaline run.”