If you keep reading past the first page, it turns out that he didn't: he deliberately left it in a gas station in the hope that somebody else would pick it up and start using it -- that way the police would wind up pursuing that person and give up when that line of inquiry led to a dead end.

The first part of the plan worked, but the second part didn't -- they never tracked down the guy who picked up the phone, but the fact that the phone was being used was enough to convince the police that he was still alive.

I guess the real lesson here is that simplicity is the best policy. His plan probably sounded brilliant in his head, but made too many assumptions about the way other people would behave.