The Faceless One by Mark Onspaugh

arm connected with the shopping bag and sent it hurtling to the floor. There was a musical crash as all six glass panels of the display case shattered.
    Without a glance back, Purcival hurried out.
    “Your … your meeting,” she wheezed out, but he was gone.
    There was a slight breeze as Purcival exited the building, providing a brief respite from the heat. In spite of this, he was perspiring freely and had developed a slight wheeze from the stress of the last few moments.
    Purcival looked up and down the street. There was no sign of a UPS truck, let alone the driver. For one moment, he thought his assistant had kept the mask, telling him it had been shipped to divert suspicion from her. He knew that was crazy. She might have screwed up, but she was honest. Still, mightn’t she want to possess the mask, too? He pushed these thoughts out of his head. Any confusion would hamper him in his quest.
    He looked around anxiously. Perhaps it would be better to drive to the UPS office, intercept the package there. He was about to look for a cab when he saw a large brown vehicletwo blocks away.
    It was a UPS truck, parked in front of a company specializing in Asian imports.
    Purcival hurried across the street, unmindful of a honking cab, and walked as quickly as he could. He was wheezing loudly, now, and kept using his sleeve to wipe the copious amount of sweat from his forehead.
    As Purcival reached the corner, the truck suddenly pulled away, belching black smoke as it picked up speed.
    “No,” he moaned, his voice like that of something wounded and trapped.
    The truck stopped just a block away, and he hurried after it.
    As he was crossing the street, his view was momentarily blocked by a large delivery truck. When it had passed, his heart sank as he saw the driver had already gone inside. No matter, he would wait for him.
    Purcival approached the truck, its engine idling in a low, throaty purr. He leaned against it to catch his breath, but the summer heat had made the surface too hot to touch. He removed his sodden pocket square and wiped his brow, then crammed it into his back pocket. He peeled off his jacket, and there were dark stains of sweat under his arms, on the small of his back, and at the neck of his shirt.
    Where was the driver? He thought these guys made a big deal out of being fast and efficient. Joey, whose physique Purcival had long envied, was probably flirting with a secretary or receptionist.
    Looking around furtively, Purcival tried the back of the truck. It was locked, and the handle burned his palm. Cursing and rubbing the sore spot, he circled to the driver’s side. Through the windshield he could see dozen of packages, some wrapped in brown paper, some sealed with tape or string. They all looked so bland, and yet one contained an object that had taken a preeminent place in his heart and mind.
    He climbed up onto the truck’s running board. If he found the package, he could remove it, then contact UPS from his office. It wouldn’t be stealing because he was retrieving his own property.
    “Hey!”
    Purcival looked down, startled.
    The UPS driver was glaring up at him.
    “Just what the hell are you doing?”
    “My secretary sent something by mistake, I need it back, I …”
    The driver wasn’t Joey.
    This man was older than Joey by at least fifteen years and had graying hair and a handlebar mustache. He softened a little when he saw the distress in Purcival’s eyes.
    “You’ll have to take that up with the dispatch office. Once it’s on the truck, we can’t …”
    But Purcival was already pushing past him, panicked that he had wasted too much time on the wrong truck.
    “Hey!” the driver yelled again, stumbling slightly as Purcival knocked him off-balance. Purcival nearly tumbled into the gutter, regained his balance, and hurried toward Central Park South.
    Purcival reached the outskirts of the park. Which way? Praying for some intuitive guidance, he began running up Central Park West,