Doc

**"Doc"** is a character featured in the side story, *Finding the Axeman* who is revealed to be the instigator behind the axe murders of New Orleans, using Joseph Momfre as an unwitting cat's paw to carry out the deeds.

## Bio

He is a tall man with a round, moon-like face, with well-groomed hair, and dresses in a blue and gret striped double-breasted suit. His actual name goes unmentioned in the narrative, although everyone calls him by his nickname of "Doc".

Being one of the co-owners of the Olivier Jazz Club, he first meets Joseph after the latter brutually beats a man to death and throws him in the river for causing a ruckus. Impressed by Joseph's strength and savagery, he sees an opportunity to employ him as an enforcer and strikes up a conversation, bonding over their shared Italian heritage, and similar sounding names, charming the simple-minded Joseph and giving him lodgings at the jazz club.

While he publicly fronts as a co-owner of Olivier's, he has underworld connections to the mafia, and engages in smuggling grocery goods to avoid paying tax. Joseph soon began acting as Doc's heavy, alongside an Italian grocer called Steve who sells the smuggled goods on Doc's behalf.

Doc would play on Joseph's naïvety and sense of righteouness, convincing him that they were doing a moral good against people who were trying to stiff Doc on what he was due.

Despite the new fear that Joseph brought, Doc's grocery business was being undermined by competiton from other grocers. Wanting to take them out of the picture, he convinced Joseph that his targets were actually part of a child trafficking ring who were masquerading as grocers, relying on the strong man's outrage to drive him to murder.

Doc would drive him to his business rivals' homes, to stake out the places, all the while stoking the man's anger with more tales of child trafficking, and the promise that, if these people were killed, some children may yet be saved.

After the inital murders, Doc would continue to lie to keep Joseph pliant - some children had indeed been saved, but there was the threat of potentially more traffickers - as he would direct Joseph to yet more victims.

However, both the brutality of the murders, and accounts from some survivors from attemped ones, became notorious throughout the city, spreading fear of "The Axeman", a motiveless murderer who would target anyone.

Doc became slightly unnerved by the publicity, and had to dissuade an outraged Joseph from writing a letter to the press stating that his motivation was to stop child traffickers. Hoping for the publicity to die down, Doc lay low for a while.

As the Great War ended, Doc knew it would affect his business.

To keep Joseph on his good side, he threw him a party, celebrating his one-year anniversary at Olivier's, since the man didn't know his birth date. Although he and the guests, among them Steve, and another man called Mike, were subject to Joseph's poems and short stories, which they managed to playfuly convince him to stop reading, to their relief.

At a later date, Doc contuined to provide him with the adresses of "traffickers". Although on this occasion Joseph inadvertantly murdered a child, prompting a worried reaction from Doc, who nonetheless tried to reassure him.

Finally driven by guilt, Joseph penned a letter to the presses, and read it aloud infront of Doc, and Steve, leading a somewhat bewildered Doc to tell him that Joseph couldn't send the letter as it would attract unwanted attention from the Bureau of Investigation that had been recently assisting the police in the city.

While thinking they was alone, Doc discussed Joseph with Steve, and Mike, although unbeknownst to them, Joseph was listening in on their private conversation, as they mocked how easy it had been to manipulate him.

They were taken by suprise when a furious Joseph burst into the room, kcking and punching, demanding they tell the truth. Doc pulled a gun on him, managing to let off a shot before Joseph tore it away and started choking the man.

Doc finally came clean after pleading for his life; it had all been for business - they had never been child traffickers, it was all a lie -he'd chosen Joseph because he thought the man was soft and malleable.

In a final fury, Joseph shattered the man's bones, and gouged out Doc's eyes, but prolonged his torment before the man finally died.

## Real Life

While Doc's real name isn't revealed in the narrative, the hints given (Italian descent, his birth name sounding similar to Joseph Momfre's, and his "Doc" nickname), suggest that he is based on Frank "Doc" Mumphrey (1875–1921) , who used the alias Leon Joseph Monfre/Manfre, and was considered a suspect in the Axeman murders.