The Repo Diaries

Bill Leach drops off two repossessed motorcycles at a holding facility in Salinas. Photo by Curtis Cartier

Pressed deep into the front seat cushion of an unmarked Chevy Silverado, Bill Leach grips the steering wheel with pudgy, calloused hands and checks the rearview mirror. In it, behind his doe-eyed wife smiling in the back, sways a wood and steel flatbed trailer loaded with a pair of motorcycles. Neither one belongs to him. Neither one belongs to the men who had them parked in their garages a couple of hours before, either. Both, in fact, belong to the bank, and the only one happy about that at this point is the man at the wheel. Leach is a repo man, and business is booming.

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