Big Mouth

The side wall of the club pulsated with the Latin music from inside. They would hear bits of the songs every few seconds when the front door opened. Brief moments of inclusion into the seedy nightlife for Jamal Goodriche and his boys. Before the music became muffled once more.

There were four of them. Instead of flashy T-shirts and ripped jeans, they wore dark clothing. And a bulletproof vest with the word ‘police crest’ printed on the back. Instead of caps turned backward, they wore dark helmets and masks. Instead of the latest sneakers, they wore heavy-duty boots. They were dressed to match... except Jamal, who had the three stripes of a sergeant on his beefy arm.

Jamal was once again leading his officers to raid a nightclub known to harbor illegal aliens. But this time, they had received a tip-off. ‘Big Mouth,' a notorious but elusive arms smuggler from Brazil, was in Guyana. Not only that, Big Mouth was on the premises to make a transaction. The Brazilians themselves had warrants out for Big Mouth. For crimes ranging from smuggling and human trafficking. To murder. But nabbing the gang leader was like a game of ‘wack a mole’.

So elusive was Big Mouth that the Brazilians did not even have a confirmed ID. Officers they sent to infiltrate Big Mouth’s criminal network usually wound up dead. Hence the murder charges. Jamal's team had a narrow window of opportunity. When the urgent radio dispatch went out ten minutes ago, they sped to the nightclub. Backup was still 15 minutes away.

He glanced at his smartwatch and raised a closed fist. Jamal had been tracking the intervals before the nightclub’s automatic door locked. Five seconds. That’s how much time he and his officers had to burst into the club. He blew out his breath slowly and steadily.

The door opened again and Jamal’s hand snapped open. The group immediately rushed to the entrance and swarmed in. They were a good few feet into the club before anyone realized what was happening. There were screams, panicked Spanish and Portuguese voices, and a mad scramble.

Jamal ignored them. He had previously scoped out this club and knew where the business deals went down. Eyes locked on the back room door, he led his men down a hallway lined with paintings of ocelots and vampire fish.

The men took up position on either side of the door, and Drew, one of his men, unhooked a flashbang grenade. Carlos swung his mini breacher, and the door went crashing down. As Carlos retreated, Drew hurled the flashbang past them and into the room. Even with his head turned, he still caught a flash of light searing his peripheral vision. There were screams and angry yells in Portuguese from inside the room, as Jamal and his men rushed in.

A tall, slender man in a dark turtleneck sweater was behind the desk. There was another man in a corner, short and rotund with a balding head and glittering jewelry on his wrist. And there was a woman, one of the nightclub's ‘bottle girls,' in a tight, sparkling red dress. Her hair was long, black and flowing. It was her most defining feature, framing an otherwise plain face. She balanced a wine bottle on a tray with one hand while her other hand shielded her eyes.

“Police! Show me your hands now!” Jamal shouted.

Teeth gritted and eyes squinting in pain, the man in the turtleneck lifted a submachine gun in one hand. But Jamal, aided by the fact that he hadn’t been temporarily blinded, beat him to the draw. The police sergeant lifted his own rifle while squeezing off a burst. Turtleneck stumbled and fell heavily. His flailing arm knocked the tray out of the bottle girl’s hand, the bottle shattering on impact with the floor.

The girl stared down at the man, shock stamped on her face. Over her shoulder, the short man with the wrist jewelry reached down to his foot. Drew immediately turned and shot him through his hand and shin bone. Pieces of gold chain links scattered. The man braced against the wall, leaving streaks of blood as he howled in pain.

While his men processed the scene and checked in with the backup, Jamal steered the shocked girl away. Far from the bloody scene and the sharp smell of gunpowder in the small room.

“Você está bem?” he asked, checking her over. There was blood on her right shoulder, but most likely it was caused when he shot Big Mouth.

Jamal was worried she wouldn’t understand his heavily accented Portugese. He had picked up the language from his days patrolling the Lethem border with Brazil, while he was still in the GDF. But, the bottle girl nodded to signal that she was okay.

“I go wash off,” she raised her hands in a state of helplessness. Tears were welling in her eyes. Jamal could sympathize. It would always be difficult to comprehend seeing someone gunned down mere feet away. Especially for a civilian . He nodded and watched as she went into the washroom of the by now empty club. Then he returned to the room of death.

Carlos was tying a bandage around the short guy’s shin. His bones would probably have to be reconstructed by a surgeon. That bullet had done massive damage. Jamal glanced over at Big Mouth, who had long ceased twitching. No amount of surgery would help him.

Jamal unhooked his radio.

“Patrol 44, checking on ETA for Patrol 10?”

“Patrol 10 ETA, five minutes,” came the crackling voice over the radio. “Patrol 15 and 21 also inbound. Status of target?”

“Big Mouth closed forever,” Jamal said, smiling for the first time that night under his mask.

The short man stopped his painful blubbering to look up. And start laughing.

Confused, the four men looked down at him as he continued to laugh between painful grimaces.

“What you laughing for?” Jamal finally snapped.

“You think you killed Big Mouth?” the man’s eyes gleamed with amusement as he hawked up a gob of mucus and spat on Jamal’s boot. “Malditos idiotas!”

The man’s laughter grew until it was abruptly cut short by racking coughs. Jamal’s eyes widened as realization hit him. He pushed past his men and raced for the door.

Jamal paused, listening intently. His ears strained to pick up even the faintest shuffle of footsteps or clack of heels. Instead, he heard the sirens in the distance, growing louder. Sweat was erupting from his forehead and soaking the inside of his mask. Feeling light headed, Jamal rushed to the female washroom. But there was no one there. Just a shimmering red dress left draped on the sink.

Of course, the club was empty. The ‘bottle girl’ had vanished. They had underestimated Big Mouth, and now the gang leader had once again escaped.