“Hi, Phil,” I started, reading his name on his shirt and not wanting to startle him.

“Hi,” he said.

“You checked my brakes?”

“Yes,” he said, cautiously, as if it was a trick question and answering wrong might set me off somehow.

“And there was nothing wrong with them?”

Phil glanced at Hal. “Nothing,” he said.

“They failed on an eight percent incline coming down Kitt Peak. Then I got to the bottom of the mountain and they worked fine. They haven’t stopped working since yesterday, driving around town.”

Phil shook his head sadly, as in, what a strange and complex world it is. Clearly, I wasn’t going to get anything out of him with his boss giving him the stink eye. Said boss tried to get me to pay for the diagnostic again, and I tossed the paper back at him, saying they hadn’t diagnosed shit and besides, the car was under warranty.

I said, “Now, Phil, given that I’m a really experienced high-speed driver, and the floor mat wasn’t wedged against the brake or anything like that … are you ready for this next question?”

Phil nodded.

“Under what circumstances could brakes give out on a car that’s less than a year old?”

Phil gave it all his thought. He looked to the right and the left. Then he looked straight at me like he’d just remembered the answer to the test question. Then he shook his head no.

“Come on,” I said. “Tell me whatever you’re thinking no matter how crazy it feels.”

Phil said, “The only thing I can think of is that someone could send an SMS message using the OBD II dongle.”

I vaguely knew that he was talking computer jargon, but I never had much to do with the guys in the internet crime division unless it had to do with distributing pornography. So Phil’s words made about as much sense as listening to someone say nick-nack-paddy-wack-give-a-dog-a-bone. Hal could see it on my face and smirked, thinking the old lady would now go quietly.

I stood my ground and said, “OBD stands for—”

“On-Board Diagnostics.”

“And SMS—”

“Short Message Service.”

“As in sending some sort of wireless message. Like text messaging.”

Phil said, “That’s correct.”

I didn’t need to ask what a dongle was because I had enough information to figure out that with all the computer software they install in cars these days, it’s possible for someone to hack wirelessly into your braking system and put it temporarily out of order.

I said this.

Phil acknowledged that was what he was getting at.

“Ma’am,” Hal started. “Are you going to say that someone hacked into your car intentionally and disabled your brakes?”