In your years in Chicago, did you ever make it to a place called Fantasy Costumes, on Milwaukee just north of Irving Park? I only ask because I just discovered it, and it seemed like the kind of place your characters would visit and enjoy. Honestly it seemed like a place that you could have invented.
Also, your books (esp. The Neddiad) make excellent and unusual tourist guides to weird and wonderful things.
In my day, all there was on Milwaukee just north of Irving Park were guys in steel-toed shoes waiting for the bus. Work in progress is 100% set in Chicago, just wait. Author Adam Seltzer conducts or used to conduct tours of weird and haunted Chicago. I bet he knows about the costume place.
