The Arsenal Acclimation

Acclimation:  “to adapt or become accustomed to a new climate or environment” (Collins English Dictionary).

 

‘I call it the “Arsenal Acclimation”,’ proclaimed Henry Johnson, with the pompous self assurance of a man who knew his audience would hang on his every word.  He liked to pretend people listened to him out of respect for his intelligence and wit and because they valued his wisdom; in truth it was out of fear.

This evening’s audience was a select gathering of precisely two people.  The first, a hired gorilla crammed into a designer suit, was one of Henry Johnson’s bruisers.  His name was unimportant, his role was twofold: to protect his employer from anyone foolhardy enough to attack him; and to provide a silent but all too visible reminder of the real reason why Mr Johnson should be “respected”.  The other member of the group was Arthur Haskell and he too played a considerable part in maintaining the fear with which he was regarded. In contrast to the fairly pricey designer suit of the bodyguard and the horrendously expensive handmade “Saville Row” number sported by Johnson himself, Arthur wore a cheap polyester car coat and a pair of equally cheap and equally polyester trousers, the kind with an elasticated waist band. 

Arthur was the living embodiment of humbleness.  Much like “Uriah Heep” in Charles Dickens’ “David Copperfield” he was “a very umble person”, and while he would never claim, as Uriah did, to be the “the umblest person going”, he was quite content to be the humble soul he appeared.  As with Dickens’ Heep , Arthur had a father whose “former calling was umble”, albeit the elder Heep had been a sexton while Haskell senior had plied his trade as an undertaker.

Something else Arthur Haskell had in common with Uriah was the fact that beneath that umble...sorry...humble veneer lurked something sinister, something dangerous.  Uriah Heep had been a scoundrel, a swindler and a thief; Arthur Haskell was, simply put, an assassin.  He had plied his own deadly yet successful trade for over twenty years, the last seven of which he’d spent entirely in the employ of Henry Johnson.  It was this exclusivity, insisted upon by Johnson at the outset of their relationship, that was the subject of this meeting.  Although he received a considerable retainer the bulk of Arthur’s earnings came from the hefty bonus he received on the satisfactory completion of each assignment.  Not only had those jobs dried up of late, Arthur also suspected his employer of using another hit man in his stead.

Before we travel any further along the "Yellow Brick Road" of this tale, I must confess to having started its recounting somewhat in the middle.  As Glinda, the Good Witch of the "Wizard of Oz"' so rightly said: "It's always best to start at the beginning". With this in mind it is necessary to retrace our steps some five hundred yards and approximately twenty-five minutes to the true beginning of our story.

 

It was nine o’clock on Christmas Eve.  Dark, scudding clouds populated an even darker sky, depositing a cold, penetrating drizzle on the world below.  As a shadowy figure entered the tunnel which took both the footpath he trod and the road it accompanied under the Victorian railway viaduct above him, he could not help but notice the walls within were no less dry than those outside.  Rivulets of slimy green water ran down the pockmarked, flaking stones and crumbling, moss-shrouded mortar, while over his head corrupted stalactites hung down like the petrified ooze from a rotting corpse.

Prior to entering this dank portal Arthur Haskell, a.k.a. "the shadowy figure", had parked his car close to a neat row of shops, a bank and several small restaurants that marked the beginning of a small community of flats, houses, a church and two pubs clustered about the intersection of two roads, one of which led directly to the tunnel.  As he exited the archway, however, there was nothing but the disbanded remains of a former council depot which once utilised the enclosed spaces below the arches on this side of the railway line.  So overgrown had this abandoned site become not even the gateway was visible, hidden as it was beneath an overgrown screen of crawling brambles, interwoven blackberry bushes and displaced saplings.

Arthur was no stranger to the area and, having checked up and down the darkened road to ensure he was unobserved, he slipped through a gap in the tangled mass of foliage that lined up perfectly with a hole in the rusting chain link fence surrounding the defunct depot.  Taking a small torch from his pocket he made his way carefully along the potholed, cracked and weed choked tarmac that fronted the disused railway arches, avoiding as he did so the detritus of broken glass, rotting wood and corroded metal that littered the ground.

His years of experience warned him of the presence lurking unseen in the darkness even before it spoke.

'Is that you Arfur?' asked the voice in an exaggerated whisper.

'You'd be dead if I weren't,' replied Arthur curtly.  'What are you doing out here Charlie?  Shouldn't you be inside monitoring the cameras?'

"Inside" referred to one of the units further along the row.  From the outside it looked as derelict as the rest, but it was here that Henry Johnson conducted business of a kind less conducive to his public persona of an honest and hardworking entrepreneur.  The well disguised cameras of Henry's security system monitored the hidden gateway to the depot, the roadway leading to his hidey-hole and the entrance itself, as well as the crypt like interior of the former vehicle workshop.  There were additional cameras in two further locations, one of which was unknown to even Henry himself, but more of that later.

'The bleedin' computer's gone down,' Charlie explained.  'Clint is trying to fix it before the guvnor gets 'ere.'

Clint, like Charlie, was one of Henry Johnson's minders.  More used to thumping faces with their fists than typing on keyboards with their fingers the delicacies of modern technology was neither's forte.

'I know a bit about computers and stuff,' said Arthur.  'Let's go inside and see if we can't get it sorted before the boss turns up.'

'Cheers Arfur,' the heavy replied.  'You're a pal.'

As they walked through the darkness Arthur asked:

‘So how’s the wife and nippers Charlie?’

‘Cassie’s fine,’ the thug replied, a less than thuggish smile on his face.  ‘She’s seven now, we’ve started her in ballet classes.  Dominic started school in September, he’s loving it.’

‘And the wife?’  Arthur prompted.

‘Oh Cher’s alright.  Missing the kids now they’re both at school.  Watch yer step Arfur,’ he warned, ‘this bit by the door is a real so-and-so.’

‘Do you think he’s here yet?’ queried Arthur.

‘Nah, Clint would have radioed if he was.’

When Henry Johnson eventually did arrive it would not be via the torturous route Charlie and Arthur had just negotiated.  On the far side of the viaduct, adjacent to the rear wall of the arch which housed the long deceased workshop, stood a car dealership legitimately owned and run by Henry.  Not even the cops in unmarked patrol cars who regularly kept an eye on the place knew the significance of the abandoned units beneath the viaduct.  Nor did they know that in a toilet cubicle at the rear of the showroom, a building which just happened to have been built smack against the Victorian edifice itself, there was a cunningly concealed doorway that led through the wall and into Henry's secret realm. 

On the legitimate side of that “Bond villain-esque” egress the dealership's staff and customers Christmas party was currently in full swing with Mr Henry Johnson himself overseeing the festivities.  It would take a matter of moments for him to slink away from the merry gathering, enter the WC, uncover the hidden exit and pass from the polished facade of respectability to the dark underworld where his true business dealings were conducted.  It was this very domain that Arthur and Charlie now entered.

'Clint,' barked Charlie, ‘keep an eye on things outside while me and Arfur sort this mess out.  And don’t forget to take the bleedin’ radio wiv yer.  Do you really think you can fix it Arfur?'

'Let's just see shall we,' answered the newly promoted Head of I.T.

Arthur pressed a few buttons at random on the keyboard, tutted once or twice, shook his head a time or two, then crawled under the workstation itself.  As he'd suspected one of the lumbering gorillas had disturbed the power cable beneath the desk.

'Try pressing "Control-Alt-Delete",' he suggested.  'Anything?'

'Nah - nuffin',' came the not unexpected response.

'Go round the back and try jiggling a few wires.'

While a distracted Charlie did precisely that Arthur slipped a small revolver, complete with silencer, from inside his coat.  Hiding it behind the desk's freestanding pedestal unit he called out:

'Press the enter key a few times, see if that helps.'

As Charlie walked back to the front of the desk Arthur reconnected the power cable.

'Hooray!' cried Charlie.  'It worked.'

Not a moment too soon.  As the computer monitor flickered back into life one of four simultaneous views from the live camera feeds showed Henry Johnson entering the toilet cubicle in the showroom on the other side of the viaduct wall.

'Clint get back 'ere now!' shouted Charlie into the walkie-talkie.  Turning to Arthur he announced:

'I'll 'ave to frisk you Arfur, rules is rules.'

'I promise you I'm not packing,' Arthur assured him.  'But as you say, rules is rules.'

Even as Clint stepped through the door at the front Henry Johnson arrived via his secret entrance at the rear.  Neither the guests at the party nor any prying policeman would have the slightest clue to his whereabouts.

'Ah Arthur,' he called, 'give me a minute to get settled and then come in.  Clint, you're with me.  Charlie, you keep an eye on the cameras.'

'Sure thing,' said Charlie eagerly.  'No problems there, Mr Johnson.  No problems at all.'  The latter statement was accompanied by a grateful glance at Arthur.

Five minutes later Arthur sat in a partitioned enclosure at the rear of the redundant workshop which had once served as the supervisor’s office.  The bruiser whose name was formerly of no importance but we now know to be Clint was in position by the door.  In the midst of a monologue Henry Johnson, our outwardly legitimate business man, sat on the far side of a shabby desk which, along with the dismal surroundings, contrasted wildly with his fine tailored suit and the thick, heavy, diamond encrusted gold adorning his neck, wrist and fingers.  On the desk rested Henry’s signature glass of Hine "Triomphe" cognac, while between his gesticulating fingers was his trademark Cobilo "Siglo VI" cigar.  Neither the expensive cognac nor the luxury cigars had been offered to Arthur.

The business relationship twixt Arthur Haskell and Henry Johnson had begun in earnest exactly seven years earlier, on Christmas Eve 2005, with a job Arthur still viewed not so much as an assassination but rather as an exercise in straightforward murder.  As with all his assignments Arthur clearly remembered the details.  Henry’s niece Isobel, or Izzy as she was usually known, had died of a cocaine overdose; Henry demanded the death of the drug dealer in return.  The dealer’s name was Jake Marlow, ratted out by his partner in crime, Eddie Scuds.  It was Eddie who’d lured Jake to a location specified by Henry, it was Henry who’d sent Arthur to shoot him.  Where was the skill in that?

Arthur had always thought of himself as more than just a specialist, more than just an expert in his chosen profession, but rather something greater, something higher.  In his own mind Arthur was a death dealing connoisseur, a veritable artisan midst the humdrum ranks of the world’s other hired hit men, past and present alike. 

His art was not just in the killing of someone, any idiot could do that, but was in the way he went about it.  Being an assassin was all about the game.  It was about researching the subject, his work life, his home life, his history, his hobbies, his pastimes, his family, his colleagues, his habits, his movements (I say "his" but "her" would be just as appropriate; Arthur included several women amongst his hits and when it came to death he was a firm believer in equality for all).  It was about fastidious planning and precise execution (no pun intended).

 The need for this degree of detail was twofold.  On a professional level, it made for the perfect hit: perfect timing, perfect location, perfect getaway, and, if so required, the perfect impact.  On a personal, and ultimately far deeper level, Arthur insisted that he had to know a life before he took it.  Simply eliminating the target would be akin to the actions of one of that strange breed known as lepidopterists, quite content to kill a butterfly, pin it to a file card and store it away.  Arthur on the other hand would have to know what it looked like in flight, where it flew, what it fed upon, if it lived as a solitary creature or as one of many, how close it had come to meeting its end in the sticky embrace of a spider's web.

'I beg your pardon?' queried Arthur, returning both to the moment in hand and to the point at which we originally started.

'I call it the "Arsenal Acclimation",' repeated Henry, just as pompously as when he’d said it, or rather proclaimed it, the first time.  'Look, there was a time, not so long ago I might add, when an Arsenal supporter like me could fully expect the Gunners to win a flippin’ trophy or two.  Take the league; five times we won it sixteen years.  Up to ‘04 that was and included the FA Cup double in ‘02.’ 

‘Marvellous,’ Arthur remarked unenthusiastically.  ‘Do go on.’

‘I intend to, and don’t interrupt.  Between '98 and '05 we were league runners up five times and won the FA Cup four times.  We won the Cup Winners Cup in ‘94 and made the final in '80 and '95.  For Christ's sake we even made the Champions' League final in 2006 and if that crazy Kraut goalkeeper hadn't got himself sent off we'd have won the whole bleedin’ thing most likely!'

'What's all that got to do with me?' interjected Arthur once Henry finally paused for breath.

'What it has to do with you,' Henry replied, 'is that things come along in life that require some form of acclimation on our part.  I've had to acclimate to the fact that Arsenal will never win anything or even come second for that matter.  We've come third or fourth every year for the past seven years, and one of those was down to the fact I poisoned the opposition on the last day of the season.  Look at us today, fourth place and level on points with flipping West Brom in seventh.  It's only effin Christmas and we're already thirteen points behind United and nine behind City. So now I'm having to acclimate to the fact that we may be becoming nothing more than a top six or seven outfit. 

'That my friend,’ he concluded, ‘is the "Arsenal Acclimation".  You on the other hand,' he said, jabbing a finger in the hit man’s direction, 'are faced with the "Arthur Acclimation." '

'"The Arthur Acclimation"?' repeated Arthur wearily, ignoring the poorly concealed snigger from Clint the bodyguard.  Much though Arthur loved fancy words, “lepidopterist” not least amongst them, Henry’s unrelenting use of the words “acclimate” and “acclimation” was beginning to grate on his nerves.

'Indeed,' Johnson replied.  'Arsenal will seemingly no longer win trophies, not even what Wenger claims is the “trophy” of finishing fourth, and Arthur Haskell will no longer be getting first dibs on any jobs I need doing.  He will however accept those jobs he does get and be damned happy doing them.  Acclimate Arthur, acclimate.  On that note,' Henry pronounced, 'you are free to leave.  Happy Christmas Arthur.'

Like a naughty schoolboy castigated by the headmaster Arthur rose from his chair and walked out into the gloom of the workshop.  As he neared the desk by the front door he saw that Charlie was engrossed in the single CCTV image now filling the computer screen in front of him.  Arthur recognised it as a view of the ladies’ lavatory in Henry’s car dealership.  This was the camera that not even the boss was aware of; the camera which Charlie, having blackmailed the installation guy to set it up, used to spy on the showroom's female staff and customers.  With tonight's part he’d been presented with a banquet of voyeuristic delights.

Even as Arthur approached on silent feet behind him, Charlie revelled in the sight of an unsuspecting blonde as she raised the hem of her party frock above her waist, pulled her miniscule panties down to her knees (revealing as she did so a neatly trimmed display of non-blonde pubic hair) and hovered over the toilet.  A low growl of wolfish pleasure escaped Charlie’s lips the instant an evening’s worth of white wine escaped from between the blonde/brunette’s thighs and into the bowl below.

Arthur had always kind of liked Charlie; the disturbing sight before him would make it all the easier to do what he was now about to do.

'Cameras still working Charlie?' he asked innocently.

‘Sure they are,' the peeping pervert stammered in reply, surreptitiously switching back to the multi-screen view of the other camera feeds as he did so.

'Good,' said Arthur quietly.  'Let me just check everything's battened down and I’ll be off.  No need to get up,' he continued, squeezing under the desk.

Arthur retrieved the gun from behind the pedestal, placed the muzzle against the seated Charlie's stomach...and fired.

'Hey,' squeaked Charlie, 'what did you punch me in the gut for?'

He died never knowing he had in fact been shot, never knowing the answer to his question.  Immediate and catastrophic internal bleeding rendered him quickly unconscious and very soon dead.  Arthur crawled out from under the desk and headed back to Henry Johnson's meeting room.  As he drew near Clint moved to block the doorway.

'The boss told you to leave,' he sneered.  'I sugge....'

Arthur's silenced pistol spat instant, whispering death directly between the bodyguard's eyes; Arthur had always been proud of his accuracy.

'What in tarnation?' cried Johnson, dropping his expensive cigar and spilling his cognac.

'Hey Henry,' said Arthur, aiming the pistol straight at his employer’s heart and squeezing the trigger.  'Acclimate this!'