Murder at the Tokyo American Club. Robert J. Collins

      It reminded him suddenly of the half-eaten cockroach in the ham-salad sandwich.

      He couldn't have been more than four or five at the time, yet the event was sufficiently impressive to record itself permanently in the section of his brain responsible for cataloging, storing, and reproducing on otherwise slow evenings the fodder for a lifetime of nightmares.

      On his best behavior, he sat in his assigned chair at one end of the table in the fancy department-store restaurant. His grandmother chatted merrily with her ladyfriends at the other end. A post-luncheon trip to the toy department was the promised reward for "good little boys who are seen but not heard." He was surrounded by quiet civility, the scent of lilacs, and blue hair.

      The discovery of cockroach parts gave pause for a moment or two of thoughtful reflection upon the special crispiness of the sandwich as consumed so far. A piece of ham, or lettuce, was stuck in an area of the mouth until recently occupied by a perfectly good baby tooth.

      It is altogether conceivable, he mused, that events can seem to be so awful that they can't possibly be real. A lifetime of listening to the tales of the Brothers Grimm had developed in him a healthy skepticism about perceived horrors visiting the good guys. In the stories, the good guys survive all terrors unscathed.

      But here was the cockroach, or at least a portion of it, clearly in evidence. He felt an overwhelming urge to communicate directly with his grandmother, seated sedately at the other end of the table. It would appear that awful events could be real.

      He remembers solving the breaking-into-her-conversation issue rather effectively. In fact, the attention he gained impressively overflowed the circle of his grandmother and her friends and rippled to the very edge of the fancy department-store restaurant. Still in his "best behavior" mode, he screamed at the top of his lungs.

      And then for good measure, he threw up.

      Now, some forty years later, the "could something so awful be real" question struck again. Standing at the window of the fourth and top floor of the Tokyo American Club, Gordon W. Sparks surveyed the scene below. Rows of neatly parked cars glimmered in the glow of lights surrounding the club's perimeter. On the other side of the parking lot wall stood the Soviet Embassy, a neighbor with whom the American Club shared a relationship fraught with complexity more on paper than in reality. As usual at this time of night, the embassy compound was dark, with only pinpoints of light randomly flashing through branches of the massive trees on the grounds.

      Across the club courtyard stood the four-story recreation building, its white walls looking newer and cleaner under artificial illumination than in the harsh light of day. Behind the recreation building and beyond the property, high-rise office and apartment buildings dropped off into the middle distance below the club's hill. Traffic on elevated highways wove as pearls on strings through the masses of concrete that formed the world's largest city. In the far distance lay Tokyo Bay, and then the Pacific beyond.

      In the middle of the courtyard was the architectural, and during most months of the year, social centerpiece of the club. The swimming pool and surrounding deck area were an extravagance in open space rarely found in Japan's population centers. On this evening in December, however, the pool area seemed strangely small without the deck chairs, umbrellas, tables, and people.

      The underwater lights in the pool had been turned on—an aesthetic concession to club members attending the annual formal dinner-dance. The rippling water cast moving shadows on the recreation building's white wall. Gordon was surprised to notice how vivid the dark lane lines were on the blue bottom of the pool—one rarely saw them through relatively still water.

      Without thinking, Gordon loosened his black bow tie and unbuttoned his tuxedo jacket. He started for the ballroom door, then returned to the window for one final check. The ham-salad-sandwich episode flashed into his consciousness. In a daze, he turned and entered the ballroom.

      The chandeliers had been dimmed, dishes cleared, and the band members were positioning themselves on the stage. Elegant couples sat at tables decorated with red candles and holly, or sauntered through the groupings of tables to the dance floor. Gordon's table, and his wife, were on the far side of the room.

      "Wait a minute!" he yelled to the bandleader, who was just turning away from the audience. The sound was lost to all but those in his immediate vicinity. "Wait a minute!" he bellowed again, still not attracting much attention. The bandleader was raising his arms to signal the downbeat when Gordon W. Sparks did what sort of came naturally. He screamed at the top of his lungs.

      And to punctuate his announcement, he threw up.

      Out in the courtyard pool, bobbing and rolling gently at the bottom of the shallow end, was a round object the size of a soccer ball. It was surrounded by murky water of a considerably darker hue than the light blue elsewhere in the pool. At the deep end, spread-eagled and looking strangely relaxed—and with another cloud of murky water trailing from it to the area under the diving board—was an object more immediately recognizable. It was the formally clad torso of what was left of a man.

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