The empty Sky Room was an oval Victorian greenhouse restaurant atop Chicago's about-to-be-destroyed 17-story Majestic Hotel. It was a penthouse covering three-fourths of the roof, which was surrounded by a safety parapet about three feet high, capped with glazed tile the green color of oxidized bronze. I expected that Willie would be waiting to leap out at me from behind one of the abandoned fake plants. All I heard over the storm was the murmuring...