Having escorted the group back to the Ritz, their guide suggested that the women might want to get a good night's rest before their tour of Versailles the next day, while the gentlemen, if they wished, could join him for a night cap.

Some short moments later, seven men out of the group of eight couples had assembled in the lobby and the guide herded them efficiently into waiting taxis.

In a few minutes, they were in the neighborhood of the Bourse, where the taxis stopped in front of a door with a red lantern hanging beside it. The men responded with approval as they entered a Japanese akachochin, or neighborhood bar, that could have been in Shinjuku or any other district in Tokyo that catered to the mizu shobai, the water trade.