Off the Wagon (Users #2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

do his homework, Carter found himself one night later, once again brooding on a rooftop. Only this time he wasn’t alone. Barber crouched on the roof’s edge, looking down at the alley below.
    “What are we doing up here anyway?” Barber asked.
    “Waiting,” Carter answered.
    “Waiting for what?” Barber got up and leaned back against a brick chimney stack.
    “You wanted to come. Now be quiet.” Carter’s tone was a bit harsher than he had intended, but the kid was seriously getting on his nerves.
    Barber let out a heavy sigh. Like any typical teenager would, Barber was having trouble with the inaction of their stakeout, but Carter needed silence. It was the little things that caught his attention. The sounds of the city echoed through the alleyways and over the roof tops. The lapping waters of the Puget Sound beyond the docks, the cackling of drunks emptying the bars in Pioneer Square, the puttering engines of eco-friendly cars rolling down First Street, were all typical of Seattle.
    Out of the corner of his eye Carter saw the light as Barber whipped out his cell phone to update his Facebook status. Just as he raised his phone for a selfie, Carter slapped it right out of his hand.
    “What the fuck, dude?” Barber asked.
    “What the fuck, yeah, what the fuck?” Carter repeated. “What do you think you’re doing man? Put that shit away, we’re on a stakeout. It’s like fishing. If you cause a commotion, you’ll scare away the fish.”
    Barber acknowledged him with a half pissed, half confused look.
    “Just use your head kid. We don’t want every criminal to know we’re up here waiting for them,” Carter responded.
    Even though Carter was distracted, he was subconsciously listening attentively for something else, and he caught a faint, familiar sound off in the distance.
    “Hush, shh,” Carter instructed, placing his finger over his mouth and refocusing his attention to the task at hand.
    And there it was, the jabbering mumble of a tweaker, probably talking to himself about how amazing his fix would be, the telltale sign of a drug deal about to go down in the city, and Carter was ready to pounce.
    Then he saw it. Two streets down, where Pike meets Second Street, a junkie Carter recognized all too well nodded across the street to a thug in a puffy jacket. The thug nodded back, giving him the signal to approach.
    “There,” Carter pointed at the pair across the street from one another.
    Barber, having grown up on the streets, was also no novice to the language of drug culture.
    “It’s going down,” Barber said with a hint of excitement.
    “Yes, yes it is, but not the way they’re expecting. Let’s go,” Carter said.
    Together, they traversed the fire escape down to the alleyway and made their way onto the busy street. This was going to be tricky, unless they could find someway to coerce both men into an alley somewhere. The street was brightly lit, and the cars so numerous, they might as well have been going after them in broad daylight.
    “Which way did they go?” Barber asked as they emerged from the dark alley.
    At first, Carter couldn’t pick them out through the throng of people walking the street, but then he spotted it. The puffy jacket gave the drug dealer away.
    “They went this way.”
    Carter led Barber through the crowded sidewalk of people milling about, mostly waiting for the bus, until they were within steps of their prey.
    “Hang back. I’ve got this,” Carter whispered to Barber.
    “But, I want to help,” Barber said.
    “Just hang back, I’ll signal you if I need help.” Carter side stepped out of the way of an oncoming couple headed their way.
    “Fine.” Barber agreed like a petulant child, but Carter barely heard him. He was focused solely on the task at hand.
    Carter let the two men get a few more steps ahead, letting them put some space between them and a crowd of people, before he tapped the thin, scraggly looking one on the shoulder.
    “Still haven’t