On a curb in downtown Manhattan sat Leon the Shill. Beside him was the Bear Man—so named because he wheeled around a shopping cart filled with dozens of stuffed animals, supposedly for sale, though only the most psychotic of parents would buy one of the tattered, licey little toys for their child. Leon and the Bear Man lived together—that is, they shared an alley near Chinatown—and survived on bottle deposits and handouts and a little harmless petty larceny.
