That ripped it! Malcolm soon left school and came east to New York, and in a matter of weeks penetrated the underworld where he became a trusted lieutenant. Malcolm’s early days in the underworld are described in unpublished notes by writer Alex Haley in the following words: Admitted to the underworld’s fringes, sixteen-year-old Malcolm absorbed all he heard and saw. He swiftly built up a reputation for honesty by turning over every dollar due his boss (“I have always been intensely loyal”). By the age of 18, Malcolm was versatile “Big Red.” He hired from four to six men variously plying dope, numbers, bootleg whiskey and diverse forms of hustling. Malcolm personally squired well-heeled white thrill-seekers to Harlem sin dens, and Negroes to white sin downtown. “My best customers were preachers and social leaders, police and all kinds of big shots in the business of controlling other people’s lives.” His income often reached as high as two thousand dollars a month. And I have heard Malcolm talk of paying off the cops from a thousand-dollar bankroll which he pulled from the pocket of his two-hundred-dollar suit. But not even “Big Red” had enough money to pay all of the policemen and eventually Malcolm X went to prison for burglary. It was in 1947, in the maximum security prison at Concord, Massachusetts, that Malcolm was converted to the teachings of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad by one of his fellow prisoners who was a member of the Detroit temple. From that moment Malcolm has neither smoked, cursed, drunk, nor run after women. He is the most puritanical man I have ever met. I have interviewed him scores of times but he will not meet me for an interview at any place where liquor is sold. He does not object to my smoking, but in polite terms he makes it understood that he would rather I didn’t smoke around him. I have entertained him in my home along with other guests, and he has sat relaxed on the floor as we drink. He has never taken anything but coffee, although he knows full well that none of us would ever betray him. Indeed, it is around the widely known and deeply admired morality of Malcolm X that one of the few pieces of humor about the Muslim movement came into being. The story is that Malcolm was attempting to convert a Negro Baptist to the teaching of Islam. “What are the rules of your organization?” the Negro asked. “Well,” Malcolm said, “my brother, you have to stop drinking, stop swearing, stop gambling, stop using dope, and stop cheating on your wife!” “Hell,” the convert replied, “I think I had better remain a Christian.” 3. THE NATION OF ISLAM