Many times honest people are led astray or taken advantage of.  I don't know this person so it's unfair for me to even attempt to judge him, however I am very sorry that happened to you.
Unless he actually died or is truly ill in the hospital, there is no excuse for him leaving you out of the loop both financially and communication wise.

I had a different but somewhat situation like that happen to me in the past.  when I was much younger I was working for for a well known former Minnesota Vikings football player.  His office was in one end of the same building as a local mortgage company.  For this reason I had frequent contact and communications with all the loan officers who worked at this mortgage company that shared the same office suites.  My so called employer ran real estate investment company.  He had a couple young people working for him.  One or both of them may have had their real estate licenses, but I'm not sure of that.  Well my job was to do the grunt work of making cold calls and drumming up leads of prospective candidates who wanted to own their own home.  Most these people I called were just getting by and could barely put food on the table, let alone be honestly qualified to pay for a mortgage.   Of course being the person I am I wanted to do my work well and also help (so I thought) some down and out folks, people who needed a real second or even first chance at owning a home of their own.  I would call leads, often times the leads was as basic as opening the white pages and just calling people at random in a geographic area.  I was to gather all their financial information I could and build a repore with them.

Every day he would come to the office driving his fancy Cadillac, while I would be driving my parents old station wagon.   It was old and funny looking, but I was still grateful for the privilege of having a care to use to be able to go to my new job.

Two weeks went by, and I was told pay would not be till the third week.    That sounded logical for a new job with the pay cycle being bi-weekly it made sense that it would be another week for it to catch up.  Three weeks, that Friday and no paycheck.  Oh I was told not to worry, it would be coming.  I was in desperate need of my check as I didn't really have gas money to even get to work.  I never got any check or even the nominal five dollar bonus commissions for every lead I was to have created that actually gave me all their information and was somewhat qualified.

The fourth Friday rolled around and I had now worked a month with no paycheck or even small commissions, not one red cent for my time or labor.  I started to complain and soon my boss who mind you was very intimidating because he stood at least a foot taller than myself at the time.  he had to have been at least seven feet tall.  His hands were massive, it's no surprise he could hold or throw a football so well with hands like that.  Well as a very young man barely just out of high school I was very ignorant about my rights or employment laws or procedures. 

He went on to tell me I would not be paid.  He fabricated some like like I wasn't doing any work and was just talking on the phone.  (Who the heck was I talking to then?  Sure I just enjoy calling total strangers out of the phone directory and filling out pre-applications for loans just for the fun of it.) 

In the end I complained to the loan officers in the company down the hall and every one of them said they would no longer give him any of the business leads they generated because they all know he was trying to screw me out of my pay.  I never filed a complaint with the State labor department because I was so stressed out I just wanted to learn the lesson and forget about this unfortunate employment experience.

As you can guess this guy gave me a bad impression of what I knew a real estate investor to be, plus he tarnished my mental image of Pro-former athlete.   He did finally give in when I kept pressing him and threatened to go to the State.  He said he'd pay me some of the money I was owed, but no commissions.  In total about $400.00 if I brought in some paperwork to him the next week.   I considered going to collect my partial paycheck, but was so disgusted and I felt so violated I never wanted to even return back there again.   So he never got in trouble and he never did end up paying me a dime.   I don't know if I did the right or wrong thing, but I knew I learned a valuable lesson from the experience.

Trust is not and should not always be an automatic thing given to a stranger.  Even an employer.  Sometimes you can do everything right and still be taken advantage of.

Today I try to get most business or employment plans in writing.  At least  some type of paper trail for evidence if ever needed.  It's sad but I fear the good old days of what was or is called "a gentleman's agreement", seems to unfortunately be replaced by stacks of legal paperwork just to form a contract, work at a job, and you name it, myriads of reasons more.

Perhaps this person will face his conscience, if he even has one and get around to contacting you.   Just be sure he does have your contact info.  You might want to give him the benefit of the doubt and send a letter certified mail restating the verbal terms of your partnership agreement with multiple ways for him to get back in touch with you.  But whatever you do, be sure you don't assist him anymore even if he does pay you, unless you get anything in the future in writing and signed by both of you on two copies, one for each of you.  That type of written contract might hold up in court if you should ever need to present it.

Again, I'm truly sorry to hear that you experienced something  kind of like what happened to me.  You have the right attitude about it, survive through it, and be stronger from it, using it as an experience to reflect upon in the future so as to be open minded but also remain cautious as well when doing business with strangers.

I wish you well and I admire you for overcoming that hurdle of a financial and emotional setback. 


Best of success,
Joel

PS.  it was nice of you to share your experience, we can learn from the bad as well as from the good.