The Proverb Stories: He Laughs Best Who Laughs Last

"Do not thank me yet, but talk to John Smith. He might be able to come up with some ideas when he hears your complete story in detail. To him you have to go into detail, it is the details that may give him the clues to solve the mystery."

And that's why I was sitting in my living room a few days later, repeating the story I had told Jack, but this time in great detail. When I had completed my story he started to ask questions. Of course he wanted to concentrate on the 'role play' part, because as he said it was at this point another man had to be a part of the story. This man had to be colored of course, and if we were lucky called Don, or Donald, and have 5 kids. He did not believe my husband could be that stupid or careless, but as he said, "You never know."

"Dear Madam, this is my proposal," he said. "I can work on your case on a 'no cure no pay' basis in between other jobs. I'll give myself three months, so please do not contact me or ask about progress before I contact you. Forget I'm working on this and live your life as normal. The waiting time can be long if you don't. For payment I will require $ 5,000 in easy instalments, if I succeed to find your girl's father, with proof that will hold legally. If I don't find her father, or I cannot supply the necessary proof, you owe me nothing. Do you find this agreeable?"

"Yes, I do," I said. "I don't need easy instalments, I have saved up for buying a car, so I can skip the car and pay cash if you succeed. And I hope you do, this is much more important than a car."

"Fine, we have a deal then. Before I start, I need your ex husbands address, where he works, club memberships, list of all his friends, not only colored. Also I need what you know about his interests, bars and restaurants he uses etc and a photo of him if you have one. And lastly, I need a swab from your daughter's mouth to make her DNA chart from, in case I find somebody to match it against."

After he had received all the details I could give, and the DNA sample from my girl, his departing words were: "Forget me and my job, I'll contact you no later than three months from now."

The next four weeks went by quickly, then time started to slow down. It was easier said than done to forget the search. Jack was a good support. If it hadn't been for him I would have been climbing walls. I was so anxious for the results.

There were still three weeks left of the time Mr. Smith had given himself, when he called and asked to see me.

"Do you have any positive results?" I asked nervously.

"I will present my report to you when I see you, but I think you will agree with me that you most probably owe me 5,000 dollars.," he replied.

I started to cry, and laugh, and cry, and in the end stuttered, "Please come now, soon as you possibly can."

"I expected an urgency," he laughed, "I'm outside and can be with you in less than five minutes."

When I opened the door, a smiling John Smith was outside, with a folder under his arm. I hugged him and dragged him through the door into the living room.

"I'll give you a short resume. The details are in the report, and you can read them at your leisure after I have left. If you have more questions you can call me at any time," he said, and continued, "We worked on the assumption that your ex husband had assistance or help from a friend or somebody he knew and trusted. If he had used somebody he picked up in a bar or some other place, he did not know, he ran a serious risk of exposing himself for blackmail. By screening his friends, business partners, golf partners etc., we came up with three possible candidates. Two were not married, and one was married and the father of five children, just as he said during the role play. As the last candidate obvious was a fertile guy, we started to look into him. On top of that his name was Donald. My daughter who works for me, went into the school grounds were his kids go to school and caused a little accident involving his youngest kid. She was the caring adult, and while comforting the kid, she of course secured something we could use for DNA mapping him. In the report you will see that there is a 99.98% chance that your girl and his youngest are siblings."

I looked at him and with a quivering voice asked, "Will it hold in a court of law?"

"I'm not through yet," he said. "When we had this result we had to secure something directly from his father. I have a large man I use from time to time to scare people. He looks very mean, but is as kind as you can get. He is very useful. I asked him to pick a fight with Donald at a bar, while my wife was at hand. It was very easy. My guy hit Donald on the nose, and my wife was there ranting and screaming to get him to keep his hands off Donald, and very conveniently produced a clean handkerchief to dry off his nose bleed. The blood is tested, and Donald is your girl's father, no doubt."

"Will this then hold in a court of law?" I asked.

"No, it won't. The evidence is not secured in a legal manner. But the right lawyer would help you scare the shit out of him, screaming rape and conspiracy to destroy your name and reputation. I think with the evidence you can present him will make him fold and tell what happened. Then you can go after your husband and get a better deal." He smiled, and continued; "I will only send an invoice to you, after either Donald has accepted the parentage, or the court has ruled him to be the father. For your information, he is a nice man, and I think he will take the responsibility for his part in this charade."

Saturday afternoon two weeks later, it was my visitation day for my two eldest kids, I was outside Frank's house. With an envelope in my left hand I pressed the door bell. Frank opened the door, looked at me and the young man standing next to me and laughed: "Have you got yourself a driver Mandy?"

"No Frank," I said. "He is a witness. You are being served," I said and gave him the envelope.

"I'm being what?"

"For the last three hours, your friend Donald has been with my lawyer and myself, and eventually he chose to spill the beans. You are being sued for conspiracy to destroy my good name and reputation, for arranging me being raped by a to me unknown man, and for lying in the court of law during our divorce case and producing false evidence in the same case. For this I seek compensation for undue grievance, lost social standing and reputation and a lot of other legal gibberish you can read at your leisure in the documents I have handed to you." I smiled sweetly at him, and continued, "The sum I am seeking is five million dollars."

He looked stunned, with open mouth, but no words came out.

I looked at him and said; "You need some time by yourself to think this through, so I suggest Len and Mary should have a weekend at my place for a change, don't you agree?"

He just nodded, and turned round to Len and Mary who were now behind him at the door, and told them to get their things and go with mom for the weekend. They ran happily to pack an overnight bag. While they where out of sight I said, "This is between you and me. I will not say anything to Len and Mary. You are their father and I want them to love you. I expect the same from you. But there will be some changes. I will discuss an amicable settlement with you, but shared custody will be a non negotiable demand from me. I advise you to contact your lawyer Monday. If my lawyer does not hear from him within next week, this goes to court."

He looked beaten, and with Len and Mary in my hands walking down toward the car, I could not contain myself from turning around and with a laugh say, "Jane is doing fine by the way, she is a lovely little child, you should get to know her."

THE END