Free Beyond the Poseidon Adventure by Paul Gallico Page A

Jason. “He really is an important police officer. It’s just that we all got, well, kinda mussed up trying to get out. But he’s on a real big-time security job here looking after half a billion dollars in gold.”
    His keen little face searched around for the reaction to this information. He didn’t see Rogo’s hand until it grabbed the front of his tattered dress shirt and heaved him up onto his toes.
    “Martin, what’d you do with your brains—sell ’em with those goddamn socks?”
    Martin’s chin strained. Through trapped teeth he mumbled, “Gee, I’m sure sorry, Mr. Rogo. I was only trying to help.”
    Rogo’s fist opened and Martin fell like a sack. Rogo’s venom again faded. It was all too much. Take a rest, they had told him. Take Linda along with you. No one will know a thing, and all you have to do is to keep an eye on it. Go and sit in the sun, Rogo, they had said, and try to keep your hands off the belly dancers. Rogo spat into the pool. He said, “For Chrissakes!” but without real enthusiasm.
    “Is that true?” Jason’s smile had gone.
    “Yep.” Rogo was, temporarily at least, defused. “It’s true, okay. It’s in there.” He indicated the hold with a weary wave of the gun. All security had gone now.
    Jason said, “Okay, then listen to me. We don’t have much time. This ship can’t stay afloat forever. She’s one-third clear of the water, there must still be quite a lot of air trapped down there, but we can’t be more than a couple of hours. Captain Klaas here, whether you like it or not, does have full authority to exercise salvage rights on this ship. That needn’t concern you. Klaas is a straight man. Look at him, for God’s sake. You’re supposed to be a cop, you should know an honest face when you see one. He’s not interested in trying to get his hands on government money of any kind. Right, Klaas?”
    The Dutchman nodded. “I’m sure we can agree that you must continue your security operation, lieutenant. That sort of . . . well, extraordinary consignment is outside my scope, I assure you.”
    Jason continued, “So you sit on your crock of gold and let Klaas go ahead with normal salvage work.”
    It sounded reasonable. Rogo weighed it all very carefully. The Dutchman was a captain. Rogo’s faith in the integrity of a uniform and peaked cap was considerable. And the freak was at least American.
    He spoke to Jason. “What about you? You tell me what your stake is and we got a deal.”
    They all waited. Klaas juggled with his puzzle: if the man was honest, why wouldn’t he explain himself? This stupid argument was wasting time; the ship could go down at any moment, and they must act quickly and leave. Coby prayed that he would say something, anything, so that they would believe in him as she did. Manny wished this difficult man would declare himself so that they could leave this stinking cavern and the cold crumpled body that had been his wife. Martin, who had always believed in the authority of a clean collar and a regular change of underwear, wondered how it could be that such a shabby figure could command their attention and only wished he could do the same.
    Rogo had a rough grasp of crowd psychology. He knew how to move them on, how to make the loudmouths back down. He had disliked this man on sight. His style was too close to that of the longhairs he despised. He loathed the flippant manner and the open contempt for authority. Rogo was the tough kid who had crossed the line to join the forces of authority and conformity; like most converts, he was fanatical in his beliefs. But he had seen something else in this man that made him uncharacteristically anxious to find a compromise: a quality Rogo could not pin down. He recognized it by the instinct all policemen develop. A hundred times you step into a bar fight. Sometimes it’s a Puerto Rican with an ax, sometimes a black with a knife, sometimes it’s a bunch of Poles. It didn’t matter. You took a quick look,