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.”
“Okay, okay,” Jim said, realizing she was teasing him. “We’ll get it done a little sooner than that. Come on into the office. I’ll have to check the book.”
Back in her Crown Victoria Joanna headed east on Highway 80, but again, instead of going straight on out to the ranch, she turned off at the Cochise County Justice Complex. After all, no one was waiting for her at home. Is
After a few seconds of reflection, Joanna shoved that unwelcome thought aside, convincing herself, instead, that the real reason she was stopping off at the office was because some-thing Jim Hobbs had said was still niggling at her. Joanna realized that what Hobbs had suggested about drug smugglers switching over to Freon was indeed true. As head of law enforcement for a county with eighty miles of international border inside her jurisdictional boundaries, Sheriff Brady was a member of the MJF-the Multi-Jurisdiction Force-an organization designed specifically to combat border area criminal activities. As such, she was well aware that, after heroin and cocaine, Freon had now moved to number three on the DEA’s list of illegal substance smuggling headaches.
Bearing that in mind, Joanna felt obliged to share whatever information she had gleaned with other members of the MJF. Before opening her mouth, however, she wanted to know more specifics. She pulled into the lot at the back of the building, parked in her reserved spot, and then let herself into the office through a private door outfitted with a keypad lock. Once inside, she settled down at her desk, turned on the computer, and logged onto the MJF web site.
As soon as she typed in the word
“So where are you this time?” Joanna asked when he answered. York’s job took him all over the state and even all over the country at times, but through the magic of call-forwarding, his Tucson number always seemed to work.
“Believe it or not,” he said, “I’m just sitting here by the pool with a drink in one hand savoring the idea of a Saturday night at home. How about you? You’re not in Tucson, are you?”
“I wish,” Joanna said. “I’m busy, reading up on Freon.”
“Freon. How come?”
“There’s a possibility I may have stumbled onto a smuggling operation down here.”
Joanna heard Adam York’s glass hit a table. The sound of it told her she had the man’s undivided attention. “Who?” he asked urgently. “Where?”
“I heard tonight that some guy up in Benson was about to pick up a big load of cut-rate Freon. I thought you might he interested.”
“You bet I am. Who is he?”
“His name’s Sam Nettleton. Runs a place called Sam’s Easy Towing and Wrecking in Benson. I just ran a copy of his rap sheet. Everything from drunk and disorderly to assault. He’s also had a number of consumer complaints for exorbitant towing charges. Does this sound like somebody you’d be interested in?”
Over the next few minutes, Joanna gave Adam York a complete rundown on the situation, including Sam’s offer to bring Jim Hobbs in on buying what was evidently an illegal shipment of coolant. York listened all the way through.
“This Nettleton guy sounds like a pretty small fish,” the DEA agent said when she finished. “But small fish often lead to bigger fish. We’ve been investigating a big air-conditioning contractor up in Phoenix for months now. So far we haven’t been able to put together anything solid. It’s not likely the two cases are related, but that’s always a possibility. Let me do some checking and get back to you. Is Monday soon enough?”
“Monday will be fine, I guess,” Joanna said. “But it may be too late. Remember, that’s when the alleged shipment-whatever it is-is supposed to arrive. Nettleton told Jim Hobbs he had to have the cash by noon on Monday in order to pay for it.”
“I’ll get back to you on this tomorrow, then,” Adam promised. “If not in the morning, then tomorrow afternoon for sure. If I can manage it, I’ll figure out a way to put this guy under surveillance. What about the fellow who told