Siding with Malcolm, Ameer began meeting with reporters, publicizing the violent threats the Nation made against him. In an interview with the Amsterdam News, he divulged Chicago’s order to beat and kill any member who joined Malcolm. Clarence X and the Muslims who attacked him were convinced that he was trying to drive a wedge between Ali and Elijah. And they were certain that only a man working for Malcolm would have told Ali to quit the Nation.9
Three days after Ameer’s press conference, on January 12, Raymond Sharrieff and other high-ranking officials attended the annual Fruit of Islam banquet, an evening of dinner, music, dancing, and a guest appearance from the heavyweight champion. The Amsterdam News reported that more than two thousand members from the East Coast packed the Audubon Ballroom, the same location where Malcolm held his weekly meetings. Located between Broadway and St. Nicholas Avenue on the south side of West 166th Street, the two-story building served as a dance hall and lodge for local organizations. What no one suspected, however, was that the Fruit’s party at the Audubon was just a ruse for planning an attack on Malcolm. Over the next month, members from the Fruit would hold several meetings at the Audubon in which they plotted Malcolm’s murder. On this night, though, Ali enraptured the angry young men seeking vengeance against hypocrites, denouncing Malcolm as jealous and attention-starved. “Malcolm believed the white press, which referred to him as the ‘number two man’ and became disillusioned,” he said, sounding more and more like the Nation’s ministers. Ali did not know it, but he had become a puppet in the assassination plot against Malcolm.10
The following day, he became agitated when Robert Lipsyte asked about his relationship with Ameer. Feigning ignorance, he replied, “Ahmeer? Little fellow? I think I remember a little fellow who hung around camp, a little fellow who liked to go downstairs and get me papers.” Scribbling his answers in a notepad, Lipsyte encouraged Ali to keep talking. “Now I hear he’s telling lies, saying he was my press secretary.”11
Ali shrugged, but when Lipsyte persisted, the champ burst into a tirade. “Any fool Negro got the nerve to buck us, you want to make him a star. Jim Brown said something about the Muslims and they made him a movie star.” The truth, Ali ranted, was that Ameer cheated on his wife with a young girl and stole money from the Nation. Ameer was nothing but a hypocrite. “He got what he deserved.”
Stunned, Lipsyte had never heard Ali speak so cruelly. When the New York Times columnist inquired if Ameer should really fear for his life, Ali snapped, revealing the depths of his disgust for Ameer—and Malcolm. “They think everyone out to kill them because they know they deserve to be killed for what they did.”
TALMADGE X HAD put his guns away. During the months Malcolm traveled abroad, he had not heard from any of the New Jersey men who plotted against Malcolm. He figured that maybe his partners had cooled to the idea of killing the minister. “Nothing was happening,” he recalled. “So I thought that maybe things were going to get better, man.” But when Malcolm returned home, the cadre began meeting again. Sometimes they drove around Paterson, planning the perfect crime. Other times they canvassed New York, looking for Malcolm outside the Audubon. One evening they drove out to his home in Queens, planning an ambush, but when armed guards appeared they sped away.12
The New Jersey hit men were not the only ones stalking Malcolm. Around eleven fifteen p.m. on Friday, January 22, three Muslims rushed toward him when he stepped outside his front door. He quickly slammed the door, locked it, and called the police. By the time officers arrived, his attackers had disappeared. Betty lived in fear of his assassins knocking on the door at any moment. Late at night, she watched Malcolm stand near the front window holding a double-clip automatic carbine rifle, his eyes scanning the shadows for the slightest movement. While he protected their home, Betty cried herself to sleep, fearing that her worst nightmare would come true by the time she awoke.13