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Malcolm, who made a point of getting along well with the press, also began leaking stories of immorality among the Muslims. In an open letter, he accused Elijah of having fathered eight illegitimate babies by six teen-age secretaries at Black Muslim headquarters in Chicago. Other defectors—including two of Elijah's sons—began following Malcolm out of the sect. Naturally, this did not sit well with Elijah. "Only those who wish to be led to hell, or to their doom, will follow Malcolm," said his biweekly newspaper, Muhammad Speaks. "The die is set, and Malcolm shall not escape."
Premonitions & Bombs. From the moment he left the Black Muslims, Malcolm had premonitions of mortality. "No one can get out without trouble," he said. "This thing with me will be resolved by death and violence." For once he was right. Two weeks ago, in the dead of night, fire bombs gutted Malcolm's home in East Elmhurst, N.Y., forcing him to flee with his family in nightclothes. Malcolm blamed it on the Muslims; they, in turn, accused Malcolm of planting the bombs in the house himself, partly for publicity purposes, partly because they had lent him the house in the first place and were now about to evict him.
For a few days the Malcolm X family stayed with friends. On the eve of his death, Malcolm checked into an $18-a-day room at the New York Hilton. Within a few hours, three Negroes turned up in the lobby, began questioning a bellhop about his room number. They left when hotel detectives started taking an interest in their interest. Next day Malcolm X left the hotel for a speaking engagement—at the Audubon Ballroom.
Good as Their Word. At the time of his death, Malcolm X had a hard-core following of no more than 100—but he was more or less admired by thousands who, deep in their hearts, were pleased by his denunciations of the white devil. "He will be avenged," said his half sister Mrs. Ella Mae Collins. "We are going to repay them for what they did to Malcolm," said Leon 4X Ameer, another turncoat Black Muslim who had a score of his own to set tle—a Christmas beating in Boston by karate-skilled bullyboys of the Fruit of Islam, the Black Muslim enforcement "elite." Added Leon 4X: "I don't know if Elijah will live out the month."
In their vows of revenge, the Malcolm X followers were as good as their word. In Harlem, less than 36 hours after the murder, a fire bomb tossed from an adjacent rooftop through an upper window of the Black Muslims' Mosque No. 7 sent flames shooting 30 feet into the night sky, gutted the building. Six firemen were hurt when a wall caved in, and 320 cops rushed to Harlem from three boroughs under a "rapid mobilization" order after the alarm was sounded. In San Francisco, another mosque was set ablaze, but firemen quickly doused it.