“Well, as a matter of fact, he did. I went to San Francisco. While I was there, I wrote him a letter. I told him I didn’t feel like coming back and asked him what he thought I should do, and he wrote me this letter telling me he thought it was an excellent idea for me to get a complete change.”
“And, of course, you just happen to have saved that letter. Go ahead.”
“I went to New Orleans. Everything was fine for about three weeks. I stayed in a hotel, while I was looking around to find an apartment. Then something happened.”
“What was it?”
“I met someone on the street.”
“Someone who knew you?”
“Yes.”
“From Los Angeles?”
“Yes. So I decided to disappear.”
I said, “That doesn’t work. If you met someone on the street in New Orleans who knew you in Los Angeles, you’d also meet someone on the street in Little Rock, Arkansas, Shreveport, or Timbuctoo.”