I ran.
Get help?
Not this old lady and her daughter. Not this Neanderthal sailor on his way to a bar and a blonde. Not the bookkeeper. Maybe the car salesman, ex-Army, Lions Club member, beefy, respectable, well-intentioned, not a complete fool. The guy on the corner reading a newspaper by the bus stop.
"I need help," I panted to him. "Somebody's trying to kidnap me."
"Really makes you sick to hear about something like that, doesn't it?" he said. "I'm in favor of the Lindbergh Law myself."
"I'm not sure whether—"
"This heat is murder, isn't it? Especially here in these concrete canyons. Sometimes I wish I was back in Springfield. Cool, shaded streets...."
"Listen to me! These people, they're conspiring against me, trying to drive me insane! Two men, a girl—"
"For my money, Marilyn Monroe is the doll of the world. I just don't understand these guys who say she hasn't got class. She gets class by satirizing girls without any...."
He was like anybody you might talk to on the street. I knew what he would say if I cued him with "baseball" or "Russia" instead of the key words I had used.