CHAPTER NINE

Joanna went out to the Crown Victoria and drove north toward the traffic circle where Jim Hobbs’s auto repair shop was located. Remembering Moe Maxwell’s advice that she put the Eagle in the shop for repairs as soon as possible, she glanced off in that direction. To her surprise, even after nine o’clock on a Saturday night, the lights were still on at Jim’s Auto Repair. One of the two garage bay doors was still open.

Instead of heading out toward the ranch, Joanna drove on around the circle and pulled in beside Jim’s cherished 1956 Chevy BelAir. Jim himself was hanging over the front fender of a Honda Civic. He straightened up when he heard Joanna’s car stop and sauntered out of the garage, wiping his greasy hands on a rag.

“It’s you, Sheriff Brady,” he said, grinning when he recognized Joanna. “1 thought it would be Margo come to tell me to get the hell home. But since I’m working on my mother-in-law’s car, I don’t figure I’ll be in too much trouble. What can I do for you?”

“It’s the air-conditioning on my Eagle,’’ Joanna began. “It went out on the way to Tucson today. Moe Maxwell says I’ll need to get in line for an appointment, so I thought I’d check.”

The congenial grin disappeared from Jim’s face. “It’s a setup deal, isn’t it? A sting. As soon as I got the call, I figured it would be something like this. Sorry, Sheriff Brady. I’m all booked up for air-conditioning work. I won’t be able to get around to you for a month or so, maybe even longer.”

“A month?” Joanna echoed. “That long? Right in the middle of the summer?”

“Too bad, isn’t it,” Jim returned coldly. “But like I said, it might even be longer than that.” Then, as if dismissing her, he turned and headed back into the garage.

For several moments Joanna sat there wavering in confusion. Jim Hobbs had done lots of work for her over the years. She had no idea what had provoked him or why she would de-serve such an abrupt dismissal. Something was wrong. Not wanting to leave the misunderstanding hanging, Joanna climbed out of the Crown Victoria and followed him into the garage.

Jim’s Auto Repair had arisen from the ruins of a defunct gas station, one that had become a permanent casualty in the EPA’s ongoing war against leaky gasoline tanks. Anyone walking into the orderly but run-down building would have known at once where Jim Hobbs’s priorities lay. The grungy cinder block walls, the fly-specked dirty glass, and the cracked cement flooring might have all been seventy-year-old original construction, but there was nothing old or lacking in the gleaming tools and up-to-date equipment lining the walls.

Walking inside, Joanna stood for a long time watching Jim in silence while he studiously ignored her. “All right, Jim,” she said at last, trailing him over to a metal tool chest where he slammed a wrench into one of the drawers. “What’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” he growled, turning on her and poking the air between them with one of his stubby fingers. “That weasely Sam Nettleton character over in Benson gives me a call this afternoon and tells me he’s got a cool deal on some really cheap Freon if I want to go in with him on it. Well, here’s the real scoop, Sheriff Brady. I didn’t bite, so you can call off your dogs and forget it. I’ve got twenty thousand bucks tied up in legally approved equipment to do air-conditioning work the right way. The reason I’m as busy as a one-armed paperhanger right now is that hardly anyone else in the county has bothered to invest in that new equipment-including Mr. Sleazeball Sam Nettleton. If you think you’re going to waltz in here and find me using illegal Freon-”

“Wait a minute, Jim,” Joanna said. “Hold on. I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. I stopped in here to see about getting my Eagle fixed because I almost roasted to death driving Jenny up to Mount Lemmon today.”

Jim looked suddenly abashed. “You mean Sam Nettleton didn’t try to sic you on me?”

“The person who sent me here is Moe Maxwell. I saw him in Daisy’s just a few minutes ago, and he said you had fixed the air-conditioning on his GMC. I don’t even know Sam Nettleton. From the sounds of it, though, maybe I should. Care to tell me about him?”

Now Jim looked downright embarrassed. “I shouldn’t,” he said. “But the whole deal makes me so damned mad.” “What deal?”

“Years ago, the tree huggers in Washington, D.C., got all hot and bothered about holes in the ozone. They fixed it so Congress passed some laws designed to fix ‘em. The holes, I mean, not the tree huggers. The first guys the feds went after for chlorofluorocarbon use were the big industries. Now they’re coming after us-the little guys. It turns out that Freon is bad for the ozone, and Freon just happens to be what makes most pre-1995 air conditioners run. The U.S. isn’t producing R-12 Freon anymore. Newer cars use R-134A. Dealers have to have proper, EPA-approved equipment to work on that or on any other R-12 substitute.

“Some of those supposed substitutes are so bad the cars blow up. Like the two little old ladies who burned to death up on I-40 last summer. Some shyster mechanic over in Gallup had filled up their compressor with something that was more butane than it was anything else.”

“Let’s get back to Sam Nettleton,” Joanna urged. “Who is he? What does he do?”

“He runs an outfit called Sam’s Easy Towing and Wrecking up in Benson. He’s the kind of guy who gives every other mechanic in the universe a bad name.”

“And what’s his connection to Freon?”

“Like I said, the U.S. is out of the R-12 business, but other countries are still making it. If they can figure out a way to ship it here, there’s a ready black market. Arizona has lots of pre-1995 automobiles that are still on the road. Here in the desert, air-conditioning is a necessity rather than an option. A thirty-pound container of Freon that would have cost thirty bucks a few years ago now sells for nine hundred.”

Joanna whistled. “No wonder there’s a black market.”

Jim nodded. “No wonder.”

“Why did Nettleton call you?”

“Who knows? My guess is he needed someone to go in with him on it, someone who could bring along some cash. I’ve got a reputation for doing more automotive air-conditioning work than anyone else in the county, so he probably figured I could use it. If I bought it at his price and charged the usual markup for the real stuff, it would be a regular gold mine-for a while anyway. Until somebody got wise. But like I told Nettleton on the phone, if the EPA inspectors come in and find me using illegal Freon, I’m out of business, just like that. I’m not going to risk it. And I’ve been standing here all night, working and stewing about it.”

“When’s Nettleton’s cut-rate Freon supposed to be here?” Joanna asked.

“Sometime soon, I guess,” Jim said. “He told me he’s got to have the money by Monday noon at the latest.”

“He didn’t say where the shipment was coming from?”

Hobbs shook his head. “No, but you can pretty much figure it out. It’s gotta be Mexico. Maybe all the old drug dealers have switched over and are carrying Freon these days instead of heroin and cocaine.” He paused for a moment. “So do you still want me to work on your car?” he asked somewhat sheepishly.

Joanna grinned at him. “As a matter of fact, I do. It’s like you said, we’re talking necessity here.”

“What do you think happened to it?”

“It sounded to me as though the compressor died.”

“You want it retrofitted to run on R-134A?”

“That must be the stuff Moe Maxwell calls R2D2. Is that what you did to his GMC-retrofitted it?”

Jim Hobbs nodded.

“Well,” Joanna said, “if it’s good enough for Daisy Maxwell’s beehive, it’s good enough for me. When can you do it? I’d like to have it sooner than a month or two if that’s possible.”