"Yes."
"Snap it up," he said. "I'll be in my hutch."
Shaved, dressed and lightly breakfasted I was at the Hall of Justice in less than an hour.
I rode up to the seventh floor and went along to the group of small offices used by the D.A.'s men.
Ohls' was no larger than the others, but he had it to himself.
There was nothing on his desk but a blotter, a cheap pen set, his hat and one of his feet.
He was a medium-sized blondish man with stiff white eyebrows, calm eyes and well-kept teeth.
He looked like anybody you would pass on the street.
I happened to know he had killed nine men — three of them when he was covered, or somebody thought he was.
He stood up and pocketed a flat tin of toy cigars called Entractes, jiggled the one in his mouth up and down and looked at me carefully along his nose, with his head thrown back.
"It's not Regan," he said. "I checked.
Regan's a big guy, as tail as you and a shade heavier.
This is a young kid."
I didn't say anything.
"What made Regan skip out?" Ohls asked. "You interested in that?"
"I don't think so," I said.
"When a guy out of the liquor traffic marries into a rich family and then waves good-by to a pretty dame and a couple million legitimate bucks — that's enough to make even me think.
I guess you thought that was a secret."
"Uh-huh."
"Okey, keep buttoned, kid.
No hard feelings." He came around the desk tapping his pockets and reaching for his hat.
"I'm not looking for Regan," I said.
He fixed the lock on his door and we went down to the official parking lot and got into a small blue sedan.
We drove out Sunset, using the siren once in a while to beat a signal.
It was a crisp morning, with just enough snap in the air to make life seem simple and sweet, if you didn't have too much on your mind.
I had.
It was thirty miles to Lido on the coast highway, the first ten of them through traffic.
Ohls made the run in three quarters of an hour.
At the end of that time we skidded to a stop in front of a faded stucco arch and I took my feet out of the floorboards and we got out.
A long pier railed with white two-by-fours stretched seaward from the arch.
A knot of people leaned out at the far end and a motorcycle officer stood under the arch keeping another group of people from going out on the pier.
Cars were parked on both sides of the highway, the usual ghouls, of both sexes.
Ohls showed the motorcycle officer his badge and we went out on the pier, into a loud fish smell which one night's hard rain hadn't even dented.
"There she is — on the power barge," Ohls said, pointing with one of his toy cigars.
A low black barge with a wheelhouse like a tug's was crouched against the pilings at the end of the pier.
Something that glistened in the morning sunlight was on its deck, with hoist chains still around it, a large black and chromium car.
The arm of the hoist had been swung back into position and lowered to deck level.
Men stood around the car.
We went down slippery steps to the deck.
Ohls said hello to a deputy in green khaki and a man in plain clothes.
The barge crew of three men leaned against the front of the wheelhouse and chewed tobacco.
One of them was rubbing at his wet hair with a dirty bath-towel.
That would be the man who had gone down into the water to put the chains on.
We looked the car over.
The front bumper was bent, one headlight smashed, the other bent up but the glass still unbroken.
The radiator shell had a big dent in it, and the paint and nickel were scratched up all over the car.
The upholstery was sodden and black.
None of the tires seemed to be damaged.
The driver was still draped around the steering post with his head at an unnatural angle to his shoulders.
He was a slim dark-haired kid who had been good-looking not so long ago.