plawrence beat me to it, but I was going to acknowledge FrankieFiveAngels' observation that Sollozzo had kept the location of the restaurant a secret and never expected the Corleone people to discover it beforehand.

If only I had remembered that important detail, I could have saved myself a big, long post . Oh well, it was still fun to read everyone's analyses of the hows and whys.

FrankieFiveAngels, sometimes it takes a newcomer to refresh my memory and redirect me to the obvious.