Free The Amen Cadence by J. J. Salkeld

weakness, but not so much if the other side didn’t know it as well. Not so much of a weakness then.
     
    He knew exactly where Young would be at that moment, and it was prefect. Wednesday morning would be a breakfast meeting with Bill Manson and Al Wallace, Young’s two key lieutenants, at the entirely legitimate light engineering business that Young owned in the industrial estate on the fringe of the city. Sure enough, only three cars were parked outside the small office building when Hood arrived, and he didn’t need to check against his list to know who they belonged to.
     
    He drove in, and reverse parked next to Young’s car. It was another warm day, going on clammy, and Hood was wearing a T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops. He looked like he was just about to go on holiday, rather than into battle, and that was quite deliberate. He didn’t have even have a knife in his pocket, although, if it came to it, his keys would have much the same effect.
     
    The front door was already open, so he strolled in, past the empty reception desk. The three men were in the open office just ahead, and Young had his back to him. Hood knew that Wallace had done jail time, but Manson hadn’t, and it was Wallace who jumped up as Hood pushed open the door.
    ‘Let me take him, Dai,’ Wallace shouted, and ran hard at Hood, aiming a kick when he was only just close enough to land it.
     
    And Hood was smiling as he stood up, having checked Wallace’s pulse.
    ‘You need to get him some lessons, mate,’ he said to Young, ‘or he’ll really do himself a mischief one of these days. Don’t you fuckers ever learn?’
    ‘You’re a dead man’, said Manson, without moving from his seat.
    ‘Aye, quite possibly. But then aren’t we all? And that’s what I’ve dropped in to talk to you lads about, actually. You know about my old mum I expect, Mr. Manson?’
     
    Manson seemed so surprised to discover that Hood knew his name that he didn’t even nod in reply, so Davey carried on. ‘Well, your good mate Dai here broke into her house, waited for her, and then attacked her. Would you fucking believe that? She’s due a hip replacement, and it was pitch dark, so it wasn’t exactly what you’d call a fair fight, was it?’
    ‘You what?’
    ‘Hasn’t he said owt to you about it? Really, Dai, you surprise me. But aye, he did it, all right.’
    Young had been smiling, right up until that moment.
    ‘Bollocks. Why would I do something like that?’
    ‘To get me where you could get at me. So you’d know where I’d be, when the time came for you to have a go at taking me out, like. Well, I can save you the trouble. Let’s sort this out, right here and now. Last man standing, all right? Actually, I mean last man breathing. And you feel free to join in, Mr. Manson. But if you do you’ll live or die by the same rules, all right?’
     
    There was a long silence. Manson’s face was white, and he showed no signs of following Wallace into the fray.
    ‘Go on, Dai,’ he said. ‘Have him. He’s fucking asking for it.’
    Young stood up, but he didn’t move towards Hood, who was still ten feet away.
    ‘No, Bill, not here, not now. I choose the where and the when. But I’ll have him, and it’ll be soon, don’t you worry. And he won’t fucking see it coming.’
     
    Hood took a couple of steps forward. ‘Really? Is that it? I thought you were a hard man, a fucking psycho. No fear of death, all that shit. But you’re actually chicken, aren’t you? And you’d go quick, mate, you’d barely feel it. It’s the best offer you’re going to get, I promise you. And I’ll tell you what, here’s a little sweetener. You get a free shot. Come on, you yellow bastard, I can’t say fairer than that.’
    ‘Have the bastard, Dai.’
    ‘That’s it, you listen to your mate. What’s stopping you?’
    ‘No, you don’t get to fucking choose when you die. I decide that. And you are a fucking dead man.’
    ‘You tell him, Dai.’
     
    Hood took