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Been Wrong So Long It Feels Like Right By Walter Mosley

Narrated By Dion Graham In the latest from “mystery master” Walter Mosley, a family member’s terminal illness leads P.I. Joe King Oliver to the investigation of his life: tracking down his long-lost father, and meanwhile, a new case pits King’s professional responsibility against his own moral code. (TheWashington Post) Joe King Oliver’s beloved Grandma B has found a tumor, and at her age, treatment is high-risk. She’s lived life fully and without regrets, and now has only a single, dying wish: to see her long-lost son. King has been estranged from his father, Chief Odin Oliver, since he was a young boy. He swore to never speak to the man again when he was taken away in handcuffs. But now, Grandma B’s pure ask has opened King’s heart, and through his hunt, he gains a deeper understanding of his father as a complicated, righteous man—a man defined by women, a man protected by women, a man he wants to know. Although Chief was released from prison years ago, he’s been living underground ever since. Now, King must not only find his father, but prove his innocence, and protect the future of his entire family. Simultaneously, King finds himself in a moral bind. Marigold Hart, the wife of a powerful Californian billionaire, has gone missing, along with their seven-year-old daughter. Orr is brutish and dangerous, and King realizes after locating her that it’s in her best interest to stay hidden. But are his motives pure? There is something magnetic about Marigold; he can’t help but want her near. In the latest installment in the Joe King Oliver series, no good deed goes unpunished. Emotionally stirring, pulse-pounding, and undeniably sexy, Been Wrong So Long It Feels Like Right shows Walter Mosley at his best.

Duration:: 5m
Broadcast on:: 28 Jan 2025
Audio Format:: other

Marley Mirabelle Mann. That was the name she gave. She was somewhere around 34 years of age and well-schooled in the arts and graces of civilized decorum. "What do you do for fun, George?" she asked me. We were sitting across from each other at the Versailles, a French restaurant housed within the Cordone Blue Hotel on the northern border of Midtown Manhattan. I was wearing a tapered blue suit with an off-white dress shirt and a maroon tie. "Didn't they tell you about my job?" I asked, even though I understood her question quite well. "Yes?" she said. "Of course, but…" The woman calling herself Marley Mann wore a one-piece frock that was a slightly darker blue than my ensemble. The dress was made from the kind of silk that relaxes on the body, making her seem upscale and yet informal. Her skin was a tone of rich, blonde ivory, her eyes gray like mildly tarnished silver. Those eyes opened wide, almost glittered. "I don't know," she mused, "I just wondered about whatever you do that makes you feel happy." "I have a daughter." Those gray orbs darkened ever so slightly. "What's her name?" the lady asked. Improvising, I said, "Magda." "That's a very interesting name. Where's it from?" It was an ancient Middle Eastern city. My ex-wife, her mother, named her. Marley knew when to stay quiet. After all, she was a very special class of escort, one of social, not carnal service. When Elena, my wife, left me, I said, "I kind of fell apart. She wanted Magda to go with her to California, but Maggie decided to stay with me. She was still in high school then. Since we both needed, I guess, some continuity in a way we were able to save each other." "You know what I mean?" "Yes," Marley Man said. I could tell by the tone of her voice that she'd found a way to feel good about our transaction. We were having lunch that day for both of us to see if we were going to be a good fit. The name I'd given her agency was George Westerly, a vice president at a large New York investment bank. That bank was starting a specialized sub-branch that would cater to what they were calling the African-American middle class. Marley had been told that I was a wealthy businessman who needed a lovely, age-appropriate woman on my arm at various social gatherings around an upcoming banking conference. Magda is the center of my life, my north star, I guess you'd say. But what I wanted to say was that I was a high-level loan coordinator and then roll out the rest of the lie concocted to get this woman my prey where I wanted her. But the words wouldn't come. My client was a man named Anthony Orr. I'd never met her even talk to the man who lived in Santa Barbara where his wife, Marigold Hart, had walked out on him, taking with her their seven-year-old daughter, Antoinette. Marigold had been spotted by a family friend, the art dealer Jason Manheim, somewhere in New York, but she was gone before he could get to her. Acting as a representative of Tony Orr, Jason got in touch with a contact he had in the mayor's office. This contact, I never knew their name or gender, put Jason together with Gladstone Palmer, an NYPD dispatch sergeant and jack-of-all-trades, asking him if he could help find Marigold without setting off an official police investigation. Sergeant Palmer called me. "Listen, Joe," Glad said over the phone. "They're willing to pay $25,000 to get her in their sights." "Not gun sights, I hope." "No, not at all. The man just wants his daughter back." "And what do you want, Glad?" "Ten percent, and a good bottle of hooch." The dispatch sergeant and I had a rocky history. Once, back when I was still a police detective, he betrayed me in order, he said, "To save my life." It was the flip of a coin how I felt about him in any given moment. But that ambivalence went into abeyance when there was $22,500 on the table. "Have your guy, man, hon. Get our one-page description of everything pertinent about the wife. What she likes to eat, what kind of schools her daughter is used to, a clothes she wears, her education, and expectations of life. Give me all that in a $5,000 retainer, and I'll give it the old high school try." "Okay, boyo." "My best friend of me," said. "Expectations of life might be over the top, but I'll tell Jason to get all he can for more. Have him get me pictures, too."