The name of Ash's cat (Dinah) is a reference to the character Dinah Brand from the novel "Red Harvest" by Dashiell Hammett. "Red Harvest" was widely considered the first hard-boiled detective novel. Also, Dinah is the name of Alice's cat mentioned early in "Alice in Wonderland."
Ash's revolver is a Colt Detective Special which fits the short's setting because it has been used in many Film Noir movies. The revolver was also used by the Trainman in The Matrix Revolutions.
The main protagonist Ash mentions Same Spade and Philip Marlowe near the beginning of the story. Spade and Marlowe were characters created by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler (respectively), the originators of the hard-boiled genre of literature.