Hyman Roth lived in Miami and had business interests in Cuba and Nevada. He had no obvious, above-board reason to interest himself in an obscure quarrel between Frank Pentangeli and the Rosato brothers over three territories in the Bronx, NY. Yet he managed to convince Michael to takes sides with him against Pentangeli—Michael’s loyal caporegime in NY. We learned pretty quickly that it was part of Roth’s plot to whack Michael and make Pentangeli the fall guy—setting up the Rosatos to take over the Corleones’ NY operation as Roth’s allies.

Why didn’t Michael, well before the Tahoe attack, see that Roth had no reason to involve himself in the Bronx dispute? Why didn’t he smell a rat?