They called him “the Man With No Face”, but only because “the Man With the Forgettable Face” left little impression. And impressions were everything.

He sat at a café: sipping his tea, solving the morning crossword, glancing at the article about the latest robbery, and smirking at the fact that, in a few minutes’ time, he could get up and walk away from his unpaid bill without anyone stopping him. He’d had to flag down a waiter for his Earl Grey, and signal to another one that his table was still occupied and no, the family of four could not therefore have it yet.

For as long as he could remember, he’d been a non-entity. School tutors repeatedly reported him for truancy, and since it made no difference whether he actually turned up or not, he’d taken to wandering the school and learning from the library by himself.

Still, they might not remember him, but they remembered his documents. He’d passed his exams spectacularly. He’d obtained careful references and had learned to rely on paper rather than people. University had accepted a name, even when it couldn’t find [i]him.[/i]

What a name he had, though. Willowby Hopkin-Hawkes. Not a name one could forget. Paper anchored him, or so he’d thought.

Then one day, it had gotten worse.

Regardless of how many letters he sent his bewildered parents, slowly but surely they became confused as to who he was and why he was sending them anything. When they stopped replying at all, he’d confronted them, but had been no more substantial than a will-of-the-wisp. He could smash furniture—and had—but their only comment would be which of them had been careless this time, own up, when did you do it Harold?

One by one, schoolfriends—or colleagues, rather, since friendship with the faceless was out of the question—forgot he even existed. Showing them photographs had initially worked, but eventually his face in the school photos became blind spots to them too. Tutors showed no recognition of his name.

It was as if the world had forgotten he existed.

Yet new people helped. They recognized him. Perhaps, he'd speculated on his days off, there was a time limit to how much exposure he had with people. After that limit, he vanished from their memories and from their very eyes.

A useful talent, in some circles…

Someone coughed. Willowby lowered his paper.

“Ah,” he said, jovial as a snob. “Rufus Knight.” He checked the clock. “Punctual, as always.”

“Well, I have three incentives.” A snappily dressed old man eased his weight onto a chair opposite, and confident as a lion ordered a coffee in passing. “This is an establishment of impeccable taste. One has one’s professional reputation to think of. And I wouldn’t miss a second of your company—” hastily, he checked a scrap of paper in his pocket “—Willowby.”

“Three hundred thousand for your account, as promised.” Willowby kicked something under the table. “‘Tis a pity you couldn’t lend me a better lock-picker. There’s such a thing as professionalism.”

“Admit it: my boys did their homework with the passcodes.”

“The passcodes didn’t get me caught, Rufus.”

A twitch crossed Rufus’ face. “That’s Mister Knight to you.”

“It’s not exactly a gourmet picnic in a police cell, you understand.”

Rufus shrugged in the manner of a man to whom “done time” was little different from a weekend break. “Why didn’t you just use your… charm on them?”

Willowby grimaced at the pause. “Hardly a charm, Rufus.” He ignored the resultant twitch. “Sometimes, it’s more like a curse.”

“A curse that’s just gotten you a hundred thousand richer…” Rufus frowned again, reached under the table, shuffled some papers, and even laid them on the table for all to see before reading: “Willowby.”

“There’s more to life than riches, Rufus.” No twitch this time: Willowby grimly noticed that. “In a hundred years’ time, who will be the greatest thief the world has ever [i]known?[/i]”

Once more, Rufus shuffled the papers and read them carefully. They were case files. Memory aides.

“Willowby, [i]you[/i] are the greatest thief of all time,” Rufus said, chuckling as he did so. “The fact will remain when the memory has… When you are the greatest…”

A frown crossed Rufus’ face. After a while, he stared blankly at the chair Willowby sat on as though wondering why it was there.

Willowby sighed. Not again.

He’d robbed museums, galleries, private homes, and even people in the street in broad daylight. He’d occasionally been arrested, and within hours either walked out a free if forgotten man or—in rare cases like this one—been rescued by teams of anxious crimelord lackeys eager to keep his services. And his name on their books.

It made no difference. The greatest criminal mind in the world had only seconds to gloat to anyone before they forgot he was right in front of them. The very papers now disappearing into Rufus’ suit would soon become blind spots too. He’d be wanted in over fifty countries, if only they knew he existed.

Only the thrill of crime—the great rebellion against a world determined to delete Willowby Hopkin-Hawkes—retained its fun.

Eventually, he walked out with the suitcase meant for Rufus. No money could bring him satisfaction, but it would at least briefly soothe the emptiness inside.