Kerning instead of extra space

I am placing descriptive text and numbering on a map/diagram. I have thousands of objects with labels of this form:

A 1234

I would like to remove the space between the “A” and the “1”, instead placing the A with extra loose kerning next to the 1. The only way I’ve found to do this is hideously laborious, requiring individual editing of every label. Surely there must be some shortcut, perhaps to allow find and replace for the unmodified A with the loose-kerned version? Any ideas welcomed. Thank you.