Originally posted by Turnbull:
Since Barzini put Fabrizio up to bombing Michael's car in Sicily years earlier, we have to assume that someone in the Barzini family was still in power in 1956, and influential enough to make good on Barzini's years-old debt to Fabrizio. Since that action was hostile to Michael, it seems that the Barzini organization wasn't totally decimated or subordinated after Barzini was killed.
Not necessarily, Turnbull.
Fabrizzio could have been imported immediately after the attempted hit in Sicily while the Barzoni family was still powerful, and simply not been located for several years until long after the Barzini family's demise.
I say that because I always felt it would have been too dangerous for Michael to leave the Barzini family intact after killing Emilio, even if was under new (ostensibly picked by Michael) leadership.
There still would have been too many Barzini loyalists around, concentrated in one group, which would have left open too many possibilities for treachery.
The safest and wisest course for Michael would have been for him to break up the Barzini family entirely, or, at the very least, scatter its top guns throughout the rest of the Corleone organization and replace them with men of his own choosing.
So I doubt that by 1955-56 there was anyone left in the Barzini family that was still powerful enough to make good on any promises made to Fabrizzio years earlier.
Even if there were, it would have been awfully risky for them to do so. They worked for Michael now. Why risk their life to make good on a promise made to a Sicilian sheepherder years before?
So what do you think of the book idea? Seriously.
