I always thought the point was that he spots a ... tattoo? Of a snake? That reminds him of the club? Or the dancer... I'm going to have to watch it again aren't I?
It was also a connection to the artificial snake scale being found in the bath tub that happened to be rare and only created by a few possible engineers. Engineers who work on robotics. One Chinatown engineer happened to be employed by the people he was looking for, who were robots in need of an engineer...
Not a far fetched connection by Hollywood's standards.