tough break

PLAYBACKの私立探偵Marloweは尾行対象の女性と対面してしまいます。
She stood up suddenly and came near me. "You're in a business that doesn't pay fortunes, aren't you?"
I nodded. We were very close now.
"Then what would it be worth to you to walk out of here and forget you ever saw me?"
"I'd walk out of here for free. As for the rest, I have to make a report."
"How much?" She said it as if she meant it. "I can afford a substantial retainer. That's what you call it, I've heard. A much nicer word than blackmail."
"It doesn't mean the same thing."
"It could. Believe me, it can mean just that--even with some lawyers and doctors. I happen to know."
"Tough break, huh?"
"Far from it, shamus. I'm the luckiest girl in the world. I'm alive."
尾行が相手にバレても話は面白くなりますね。さて、会話表現の "Tough break" の意味を調べます。
・McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs: a bit of bad fortune. I'm sorry to hear about your accident. Tough break. John had a lot of tough breaks when he was a kid, but he's doing okay now.
・The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms: Also, tough luck. A trying or troublesome circumstance, bad luck, as in He got a tough break when he was denied a raise, or Tough luck for the team last night. This idiom uses tough in the sense of "difficult," a usage dating from the early 1600s. The variant is also used as a sarcastic interjection, as in So you didn't make straight A's-tough luck! A slangy variant of this interjection is tough beans, and a ruder version is tough shit.
"Tough break"、言われたくない表現ですが、人生には実際に何度もあるんですよね。
ところで "shamus" は度々でてくるのでもう覚えてしまいました。"A private detective."(Oxford English Dictionary)を指しています。