Crisis response: laying rubber, driving interference, and the widow-black vigil

pivotal · 12-13 Nov YDAU

• When: the small hours of 12 Nov (the drive) into the following days (the Trauma-Wing visits)
• What: Reached at last, Pat converts on a dime from absent director to fierce fixer. She pulls up in the Aventura laying rubber, screams rather unserenely at Thrust for not already having rushed Gately to St. E.'s, covers the shot man with her own black suede car-coat, lets the masked Joelle ride shotgun, and drives interference like a madwoman ahead of Thrust's Corvette to the hospital. In the Trauma Wing she keeps vigil dressed entirely in black but formally, as for court; she kisses Gately's cheek, tells him everything at the House is back to normal, more or less, and essentially fine, that the House is a community and takes care of its own, and — protecting his sobriety — honors the promise he extracted: HISTORY OF NARCOTICS DEPENDENCY, in italics, on the chart. At the visit's end she bursts into tears for no reason Gately can see; he gets so embarrassed he pretends to pass out.