How'd they get the horshead on the bed from the godfather
If you play the mediocre video game adaption of the overrated movie you'd find out.
.Even after two viewings, it's not even clear to me who the thugs are working for -- Frankie Minaldi, I am told -- or why they are after Noodles. Are they in on the plot with Max? Apparently not, from their rather sanctimonious grilling of Fat Moe. (I mean, how exercised can they be, really, about one gangster killing his partners, as they appear to believe Noodles did? After all, they are working for the same Frankie Minaldi who earlier arranged the murder of his 'brother' Joe.)There are other obvious questions about these three hoodlums' motivation, that the screenplay never bothers to answer. Are they after Noodles' money stash? If so, why not torture Fat Moe for the key directly? When they don't immediately get any useful information out of Eve, why don't they torture her, the way they do Fat Moe? For that matter, why kill Eve, but let Fat Moe live?And if it's really such an outrageous violation of the underworld code to kill your partners, then why does Max go 35 years without being punished for the murders of Cockeye and Patsy? Don't tell me that he rose to become Secretary of Commerce without being recognized by any of his fellow mobsters.
I believe the reason the Combination was after Noodles is cuz he ratted out their booze shipment to the cops, and they lost all that liquor. That's how it is in the book, and I believe in the movie is the same way. I never had any reason to doubt that.(It was not Max who sent the hit men after Noodles; Max had faked his death and fled. It is clear that he was in cahoots with the unions (as we see in 1968), but I do not think it is clear whether or not the Combination knows he is alive). However, the Combination knows that Noodles ratted them out to the cops (as Max tells Noodles in 1968, "the cops were in on it too..."), and caused them to lose that entire booze shipment; that's why it sent hit men after Noodles