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meandered past the orangutans and great apes. There was a special display outside the monkey house and, curious, Tony squinted in the moonlight to see what it said.
    COME MEET THE NEW BABY! We are pleased to announce that a golden lion tamarin monkey was born here on August 2nd. This species seldom reproduces in captivity. The baby is healthy and enjoys having visitors.
    Next to the announcement were several snapshots of a baby monkey. Tony stared at the pictures for a long time. The monkey was tiny, no bigger than a doll. In one of the pictures, a person was holding it and the little monkey had its arms wrapped around the person’s neck and its head snuggled against the person’s chest just the way a little child might.
    There was also a newspaper article about the birth of the baby monkey. The headline said: RARE BABY MONKEY ATTRACTS ZOO VISITORS. The story began by saying zoo attendance was up 35 percent since the birth of the baby monkey.
    Tony tugged on the glass doors that led inside the monkey house. They were locked. He cupped his hands on the sides of his face and peered inside.
    The interior of the building was dimly lit, as if the zoo were trying to match the moonlight of the outdoors. Tony could see glass partitions which separated zoo visitors from the floor-to-ceiling chain link enclosures where the monkeys lived.
    Inside the enclosures, he saw trees, fallen logs, and platforms at various heights. In one cage, high up by the ceiling, there was a swing.
    Something moved in the cage closest to where he stood. Tony saw a small shape. For a moment he thought it was a squirrel. When it moved again, another, smaller, shape followed and he realized that it was the golden tamarin monkey and her famous baby.
    And that’s when he knew how he would get enough money to go to Mexico. He would kidnap the baby monkey and hold it for ransom.
    It should be a snap. All he had to do was get into the cage and coax the little monkey to come to him. That would be simple enough.
    Tony’s heart began to pound as he thought of what he would do after he had the monkey. He’d get a room somewhere, hide out, and demand a ransom. The zoo must have plenty of money and if they didn’t, they would get it from the public. People who love animals are suckers for animal sob stories. The public would contribute. All the people who had come to the zoo to see the baby monkey would want to help get it back. They’d give money; he was sure of it.
    Twenty thousand dollars. Tony leaned his head against the cool glass door and closed his eyes. He would demand a $20,000 ransom for the return of the baby monkey. And he would get it.
    But first he had to have the monkey. He squinted through the door again. Even if he broke in, the glass partitions inside looked solid and so did the chain fencing. Even his knife couldn’t cut through chain like that; it would take a hacksaw.
    Take your time, he told himself. Calm down and think it through before you act.
    There had to be some other way to get inside. How do the keepers put food in? How are the cages cleaned? There must be some kind of entrance at the back side of each cage.
    His hands dropped to his sides and he started around the outside of the monkey building. He soon came to a wooden door marked “Employees Only.”
    My lucky day, he told himself, as he used the knife to pick the lock on the door. As he worked, he planned his strategy. He would go through whatever opening was at the back of the rare monkey’s cage. He would use the bananas in his pocket to make friends with the mother monkey. While she ate the bananas, he would pick up the baby, step back through the door or hole or whatever it was, and leave.
    He would have to move quickly. Even though the monkeys were tiny, they were still wild animals and he wasn’t sure what the mother would do if she saw him take her baby. The last thing he needed was to get bit.
    If he had to, he would give her his sandwich, to distract her. That should