Hardboiled

Yes, I'm back. Yes, it's been a long time. But people (read:me) get busy.
Here's the beginning to another little something I wrote. This is actually all I have at the moment. I'd welcome any ideas on where to go next. It's my attempt at Hardboiled genre writing, I'm being very very Hardboiled.

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It was a rainy night, the kind of night where you could leave a black cat out at night and find a white cat on the stoop in the morning. It was a rainy night, the kind that only comes at the end of the month. It was a rainy night, the kind that always brings with it a stranger breed of clientele.
She wasn’t a regular. I could tell by the way that she carried her petite frame that I wouldn’t be linking her to any of the salami-eating goodfellas that peopled my Rolodex. But she was a looker. Her look was plucked from a movie, the kind that you would expect on the cover of a pulp novel: big lips, eyes hidden behind voluminous bangs, a bust that refused to hide behind her blouse.
My office was closed.
But I’m a sucker for a good-looking woman.
I kicked back in my chair and threw my feet up on the desk before me. I pushed my hat back on my head and I lit myself a cigarette. I paused before sliding the pack of Luckys into my breast pocket: “You smoke?”
“Thanks,” she smiled and made her way to the chair at in front of my desk. I handed her a lit cigarette as she sat down.
“I’m closed,” I said.
“I saw the light on, and the door was unlocked, so I just thought that—”
“I’m closed.”
“But maybe if you heard me out, heard my story, maybe you’d be inclined to help.”
“Listen ma’am, I gotta stick to my principles. Now, regardless of how much peril you might be in, if I help you after I’m closed… then I gotta help every Joe and Jane off of the street. You see where I’m coming from, right? Try back tomorrow morning, at eight. I’ll help you then.”
“But I won’t make it through the night. They’re after me, Mr. Flint. And I’m surprised that I’ve made it this long. I just thought that if I could make it here, to Bay City, that maybe the famous Osiris Flint could help me. Could protect me,” Her eyes glowed despite the dim light. They cut through the blue smoke in the room and tore at my soul.
“Osiris Flint isn’t in the bodyguard business. He’s a private investigator. And I’m damn good. But I don’t do protection. Sorry. I’m closed.”
She leaned forward and treated me to a front-row, and calculated, viewing of her cleavage. The sound of my dry throat swallowing could be heard in Akron.
I’m a sucker for a good-looking woman.
“Look, I’m not making any promises. And I don’t want you to think that I’m taking the case. But why don’t you go ahead and tell me your tale. No guarantees, but maybe I can do something. And by something, I’m thinking like give you some advice, or point you in the direction of someone who would really help. Of course, there will be a consulting fee for the listen.”
She sat up straight in her chair. Her face was overtaken by an ear-to-ear smile. She swept the hair from her face and revealed a complexion that was clearer than the weather over San Quentin. She took a long drag on her cigarette. She leaned forward again, through the haze of her exhale, and placed her hands on her knees. And began her tale…
“I work nights over in Mainville. Nothing sleazy or illegal, just bartending and waiting at a joint called Vic’s Roadhouse. I dance occasionally too, for the tips, but that’s not the bulk of my job.
“Anyway, about two weeks ago some gentlemen came into Vic’s. I use gentlemen in the loosest of terms, because the only things gentle about them were their silk ties. There were five men, each fitting the most generic of descriptions: Big, broad, balding, ugly. The only one who ever did any talking went by the name of Anton. And I only know that because he only spoke in the third person
“ ‘Anton’ll have a scotch,’ ‘Anton was wondering if you could get him another plate of ‘em French fried potatoes,’ things like that. They were rude, the gentlemen, and they drank far too much. They would arrive each night around eleven and depart with the rising sun, leaving the Roadhouse in shambles. Never paid their tab either, which is where the trouble started.
“They had been coming in, and not paying, for about a week, when Gus, the floor manager, finally told them that they ‘either had to pay their bill and tone it down, or hit the road and not come back.’ Well, Anton and his gentlemen associates didn’t appreciate being censored by a man who ‘clearly didn’t understand that you don’t wear polka-dots with pinstripes’ and they reacted less than gracefully to the imposed ultimatum.