Augie da Costa felt his blood flow faster when he laid eyes on the Asian chick with the messy blonde hair.

She sat three stools away, in Shooters Bar & Grill next to the bay in Hilo, Hawaii. Above the clack of pool balls and Aerosmith’s “Rag Doll” blasting through the joint, Augie heard her order a gin and tonic.

He finished his beer and asked the bartender for another. Then he sized her up.

She had small boobs and narrow hips but awesome bronzed legs. Lots of mascara and crimson lipstick, just the way Augie liked them. A sleeveless top exposed toned arms. Another turn on, as bare female arms had an aphrodisiacal effect on Augie.

And she had wave upon wave of dirty blonde hair. She wore it mussed up in an “I’m hot and I know it, but I want you to think I’m too modest to believe I am” way.

Real or wig, it didn’t matter to Augie. She was do-able.

He scanned the bar. Lots of locals, as usual, but also a handful of tourists, couples, from the nearby Hilo Hawaiian Hotel. There were some old golfers, fresh from eighteen holes at the Naniloa Country Club, just across Banyan Drive. All of them drunk off their asses. 
The bartender placed a fresh beer in front of him.

“Where’s your wife?”

A female voice.

Augie looked at the blonde Asian chick. She pointed at the ring finger on his left hand.
“Your wife?”

Over the din, Augie said, “She’s out of town.”

The Asian woman leaned closer and cupped a hand to her ear. Augie picked up his beer and moved two stools to his left.

“She’s visiting her mom in Los Angeles.”

“Do you have kids?”

“No. Not at home. We have a son, he’s in school on the mainland.”

The Asian chick sipped her drink. “You don’t look old enough to have a son in college.”

“I hear that a lot,” Augie said. “I have a baby face. It’s a curse.”

“How old is your son?”

“Nineteen. Been married eighteen years.”

She laughed. “So, what do you do?”

“I’m a general contractor.”

“That sounds interesting.”

Augie made it sound that way. He regaled the woman with stories about his construction exploits all over the Big Island. He threw in some funny anecdotes about stupid employees, and the occasional screwed up job, just to let her know he was human. She laughed at appropriate times and looked thoughtful at others. But all the while, he knew she was hooked on his every word. At least she appeared to be.

She sipped her drink. He noticed she’d barely touched it during his lengthy discourse on general contracting.

“What brings you here tonight?” he said.

“A friend was supposed to meet me for dinner but she got tied up at work, so I decided, what the heck. I’m dressed up, so I’m going out anyway.”

Augie watched her play with her hair, the universal female body language signal he knew meant she wanted to get to know him better.

 “What’s your name?”

“Marcy.”

Augie killed his beer. “Do you like pizza?”

***

For the next four weeks, Augie successfully hid Marcy from his loving wife, Josefa, as he had with past mistresses.

In the past, Josefa never tipped her hand if he suspected she knew he was getting a little something on the side. She consistently maintained the veneer of the adoring wife with a happy marriage, which was fine by Augie.

But this time it was different. Augie sensed a passive-aggressiveness from Josefa, an apathy about almost everything in their lives.

Augie’s burgeoning relationship with Marcy was just as peculiar. After a month, the closest he came to boning her was a make-out session at her small house on the south side of town. When his hands wandered to her thighs, she backed off, reminded him he was married, and insisted she needed to think about where their relationship was heading.
Then the day came when Augie decided the time for thinking was over.

***

On the eve of their fifth week together, Augie invited Marcy to lunch at Café Pesto, across from the bay in downtown Hilo. With him was a secret weapon, the deployment of which had led to innumerable hours of animal sex with previous mistresses.

“I got you something.” He handed her a gift bag.

“Augie, you shouldn’t have.”

“It’s a special occasion for you and me. And you’re a special woman.”

Marcy removed a rectangular box from the bag. She opened the box, and gasped. Inside was a pair of gold earrings, with solitaire diamonds set inside white-and-yellow gold plumeria flowers. Next to them was a necklace, composed of more gold plumeria blooms. In the middle of the necklace was a single large plumeria with a diamond-studded “M.”
Marcy read the lettering printed inside the lid: Another Island Creation – from the Beautiful Kona Coast of Hawai’i – Handcrafted by Jules.

“Oh, Augie,” she said, “they’re gorgeous.”

“Yeah, I know. I had them custom made.”

“Where on earth did you get them?”

“Dude in Kona, Jules Matsu-whatever. He’s expensive but he’s good. And you, Marcy, are worth every penny.”

This was his biggest push yet. In the past, yeah, he’d hand out some gold loop earrings if he wanted a simple screw or a sapphire tennis bracelet for an entire weekend of wild monkey sex. But never had he invested so much in a girl’s best friend in order to get the girl in bed. Not just once, but, he hoped, repeatedly.

After lunch, he walked Marcy to her car, a nondescript Nissan Sentra.

A light rain fell. She kissed him.

“Think you can get away this evening?” she said.

“Yeah, I can make that work.”

“Good. Be at my place, seven sharp.”

Augie arrived at exactly 6:59 p.m. Marcy answered the door bedecked in her new jewelry, some perfume Augie thought smelled expensive, and a blue floral kimono robe that barely hit her mid-thigh.

He could tell, there was nothing under the robe.

“Would you like some wine, or should we skip the preliminaries and get to the main event?” she said.

Augie said, “Show time.”

Marcy took him by the hand and led him to her bedroom. Jack Johnson played on an iPod through a pair of speakers. Augie thought it an interesting choice for background music. Marvin Gaye, sure, or maybe some 1980s hair-band power ballads as a change of pace. But he figured, in a few minutes it wouldn’t matter anyway because neither of them would hear the music over their loud moans and shouts of passion.

“Make yourself comfortable.” She motioned to the bed, and went into her bathroom. “I’ll be right back.” She shut the door behind her.

Augie stripped and hopped into the bed. He pulled a sheet up to his waist. About a minute later, the bathroom door opened. Marcy leaned against the doorjamb with her left hand on her hip.

His heart sank. She had replaced the skimpy kimono with a pair of jeans and a plain white tee-shirt. She also scrubbed off the excessive make-up to expose a face that was still pretty but, for Augie’s tastes, a tad plain. Yet the worst thing, as far as Augie was concerned, she wore short black hair cut into a bob instead of her hot mess blonde tresses.
The expensive, custom-made jewelry still sparkled against her skin.

“Uh, Marcy, baby, what’s going on?” Augie sat up and looked around the room. There had to be a hidden camera somewhere. “Am I being punked? I mean if I am, this is a new twist. No other chick’s done that sort of thing before.”

“In a manner of speaking, you are being punked,” she said. “But not in the perverted way you’re thinking.”

“Perverted?”

“By the way, my name is Noelani B. Lee, not Marcy. And for your edification, I am a licensed private investigator.”

“My edifi-what?” Augie felt his heart rate climbing. “Hey, come on, what’s going on here?”

“How about instead I let you explain that to my client,” Noelani said.

A closet door opened. Josefa, her face flush, jumped out. She pointed an accusing finger at her naked husband. “You cheating, conniving, two-timing son of a crack whore bitch.”
Augie lost his breath.

“I always knew one of these days I was gonna catch you,” Josefa said. “I always knew you were screwing around behind my back but I could never prove it, you with all your bull-crap lies and excuses and all that crap. Well, now I got you red-handed.”

“Wait, baby, it’s not like it looks.” He cowered under the sheets.

“This I gotta hear,” Noelani said.

“Yeah, me too,” Josefa said. “It better be good because in exactly ten seconds, I’m gonna rip your nuts off.”

Augie took a deep breath. “All right, see, this blonde bimbo tried to seduce me. Honest. I wanted nothing to do with her, but you know, I had a few beers and she did look good and – ”

“Which is why you bought her that necklace and those earrings.” Josefa took a menacing step toward the bed.

“No, baby, well yeah, see, I – ”

Augie’s feeble attempts to make piss-poor excuses ended when Josefa leaped onto the bed. She landed knee first on his privates.

***

Several weeks later, Noelani Lee met the ex-Mrs. da Costa at a coffee shop in downtown Hilo.

Noelani bobbed a bag of green tea in hot water. “How long did you suspect he was cheating?”

“Almost since we got married,” Josefa said. “I just never could prove it. No telling how many skanks he screwed. I hate to say it but I’ll give the little bastard this much, he’s awful good at covering his tracks.”

“He’s got a thing for blondes, huh?”

“Some things I noticed, some I didn’t.”

“Well, he seemed to have you fooled but then he went out and bought those fancy jewels,” Noelani said. “Not like it’s the first time I’ve seen that, but those were some seriously expensive goodies.”

“Maybe it’s a good thing he did. I mean, when those subcontractors started leaving messages saying they ain’t been paid, then I knew something big was up this time.”

Josefa looked at her hands. “Miss Lee, I know I still owe you money, but the problem is, I’m kinda low right now. You know, divorce, economy and all.”

Noelani had heard that one before. She lost count of how many clients either bartered for her services or financed their balances owed. On occasion, some actually paid up.

“Josefa, we’ll figure that out. The important thing is, you need to get back on your feet and on with your life.”

“No, I want to make this right as much as I can.” Josefa reached into her handbag and removed a familiar rectangular box. She handed it to Noelani, who opened it. Inside were the necklace and earrings Augie presented to the fictional blonde Marcy.

“I got them as part of the settlement,” Josefa said. “I don’t want them, but I thought, maybe you can re-sell them to that man in Kona who made them. Maybe that can help pay my debt to you.”

At home that evening, Noelani re-read the gilt lettering inside the box.

Handcrafted by Jules.

Noelani wasn’t a jewelry kind of gal. Sparkly things didn’t do much for her. She figured, should she find herself on the Kona side of the island, she’d make sure this Jules got his stuff back.

Maybe, she thought, it’s the least I can do.

One of these days.

***

The fancy Canon digital camera with the zoom lens was a wedding gift from the bride’s father. The bride and groom were excited to use it to document their Hawaiian honeymoon for their families and friends in San Diego.

Problem was, the groom noticed it was missing after they paid for lunch.

“I mean it was right here, I set it down right here,” he said to the waitress as he pointed to the floor next to his chair.

Thus began a frantic search for the expensive camera, even as nobody noticed a man in plaid shorts stroll from the restaurant.