Second, Vincent would lurk in the background as Michael's "bulldog" (just as The Ant was Zasa's bulldog), except that Michael would keep Vincent at arms-length. Vincent would, in effect, be a deterrent to those who would try to unseat Michael by violence.
I think we all pretty much agree on this, TB, but I wonder how much in "the background" Vincent could be. In other words would he actually appear to be running a family in NY with regimes, and capos, territories and a place on th Commission with Michael pulling the strings, or would he be less visible?
Yes, indeed, dt! Even if things had gone Michael's way, he'd have had to face the reality that he'd probably created major--perhaps fatal--problems for himself in anointing Vincent:
Vincent needed Michael's patronage to get where he got. But Mafia's all about greed, not gratitude. Once Vincent had a secure criminal power base (after organizing a massacre much like the one Michael orchestrated in '55), why would he be content to lurk in the background? Wouldn't he come after Michael's "legitimate" empire, just as Michael lusted after Roth's "legitimate" empire? And wouldn't he come after Mary, too?
It'd probably work out to another in Michael's lifelong examples of winning battles and losing wars.
