Character Study of Joe Cabot in Reservoir Dogs

Up until the beginning of the action which commences in 1992:

I have been successful at planning and executing robberies that require more than one person.

The way I do it:

  

  .    Do the research required to know all about the place and how it operates

3.    Arrange for the sale of the stolen goods

4.    Assemble a team of people who don’t know one another and keep it that way

5.    Carry out the plan and disburse the team

6.    Fence the goods

7.    Pay off the team

My robberies have been so successful that the police have made it a mission to catch me, not one of my teams but me, in the act of carrying out the plan.  Once previously, they implanted an undercover cop in one of my teams.  He was discovered and killed before we could be arrested.

About me:

I was born in 1927 in North Saint Louis and grew up there.  I went to Holy Cross School and McBride High School and worked part time at Scruggs, a downtown department store.  There I was associated with a variety of people.   I found out early that there were two paths down which one could walk, the high ground or the low.  The low ground was easier, required a lot less work, and more lucrative when I was a kid so that’s what I did.

When I got out of high school I started working for a group of men who controlled a neighborhood and made sure that the residents were protected from any undue outside influence.  The businesses were independent proprietorships that offered few complaints about the somewhat reasonable amounts we were asking.  My job was collecting the premiums on this “insurance” and making sure that they were paid.  

Occasionally I would have to step up to resistance, which wasn’t often but easily overcome by brute force.  I am a big guy so it didn’t happen all that often.  Toughening up to be able to handle even the most arduous task was important and I killed another for the first time when I was 27.  The event was hailed by my boss and coworkers and I was kind of proud of myself.

Anyone looking at me would think I was a working stiff.  I had a wife and family, a modest house in Baden, one son, and went to church regularly.  I was in the Knights of Columbus and the Holy Name society at church and we went regularly to Mass.  

Anyone who asked where I worked or what I did was told I was in the insurance business.  There were those who knew but they also knew not to say anything. 

There was this guy who move into the parish who was sort of sanctimonious and put two and two together about me.  He started talking about me behind my back.  Late in October, near Halloween, I waited for him to come home.  When he got out of his car I approached him, beat the shit out of him and told him to forget about me and about my business or his family would miss him terribly.  There was never any more trouble out of anybody, period.

As I matured I looked for a way to become more independent.  I didn’t want to give up my job in the mob but I wanted exercise my people and planning skills.  I didn’t start thinking this way right away, I was content with what I was doing in the mob until I was in my early thirties.   

My first job set the pattern for all that followed.  I went to the south west part of the county and looked at the possibilities.  It was a more affluent area, around Kirkwood, where the security was not as good as in the city.  I found a couple of places that had good merchandise, small staffs, and regular hours.  I asked a couple of guys who didn’t know each other to join me in a “project,” a hold up.  Then I met with them individually to tell them the general ground rules and plan; then a team meeting where they all saw each other for the first time.

It was important that they not know each other because I was operating outside the organization, on my own.  Also because if any one of them were to get id’d and arrested they wouldn’t be able to identify anyone else on the team.  They could have id’d me, of course, but that would have been a death sentence for them.  This was made clear in my first meeting with each of them.

For the past 40 years, I have been able to successfully implement this arrangement.  I have done well for myself and for those who team up with me.  So much so that applicants are continuously contacting me to participate in one of my capers.

I’ve not been greedy, I’ve taken 50% of the fenced amount and split the other 50% among the team.  This meant that the “take” had to be considerable and the team kept to a minimum because with a team of five, each would get 10% of the take.  I put a downside limit of $100K so each would get $10K.  That’s not bad for a day’s work.