Free The Greatest Power by Wendelin Van Draanen

to provide.
    Damien also painted it (in a moment of sheer frivolity) not black but the deepest, darkest purple imaginable and installed a fold-back ragtop to match.

    The car became his pride and joy.
    His coolest, most marvelous treasure.
    His devilishly dandy delight.
    It was, without question, his baby.
    So it was with sentimental sadness that Damien now realized that it had been much too long since he’d driven the Eldorado.
    His Sewer Cruiser had somehow usurped his Eldorado. Sure, the Cruiser was functional, fast, and
bad
(for a souped-up moped, anyway), and it did use very little gas (a definite plus), but it wasn’t the Eldorado!
    How had so much time gone by?
    How had life become so tangled that he couldn’t just take the Eldorado out for a spin once in a while? Top down, wind in his oily hair, whitewall tires purring on the open road … you know, just get out and
cruise
.
    What doubly annoyed him was that he was thinking about the Eldorado now because he wassaddled with those blasted Bandito Brothers. For his double-edged plan to work, he needed to get them into town.
    Damien considered the possibilities:
    It was too far for them to walk.
    He couldn’t trust them to get downtown on their bucktoothed burro (which was, in fact, the means by which they’d arrived at the mansion).
    And they’d never all fit on the Sewer Cruiser. (Besides, he didn’t want them knowing about his secret speedway under town—they already knew way too much.)
    So after spending the night in his workshop (muttering and brooding and devising diabolical devices needed for his plan), he realized he had no choice.
    They would take the Eldorado.
    It would, after all, be worth it.
    If
they caught the boy.

As you may recall, the Invisibility ingot does not make you inaudible (which is why it was important for Dave to be,
shhhh
, quiet when he was moving among people toward the manhole cover after the bank heist).
    It also does not make you non-odiferous (which is why the monkey could smell Dave, even over the aroma of freshly ground Himalayan coffee).
    And unfortunately, it does not make you disappear physically (which is why Damien’s coat snagged as he whooshed by Dave in the convoluted corridor).
    I say “unfortunately” because it was this solidlittle fact that gave Damien Black his bwaa-ha-ha moment in the great room (interrupted as it was by the caw-caw clock). It was this solid little fact that had him working feverishly through the night in his workshop.
    And in the end, it was this solid little fact that had him dig through his den of dastardly disguises and make the Bandito Brothers remove their absurd bandoliers and sombreros so they could, instead, dress up as blind men.
    “I feel naked,” Pablo complained, for although Damien had stripped them of their six-shooters when they’d arrived, they’d still been wearing their bandoliers of ammunition, and the weight across his chest had given Pablo a real sense of security.
    “I feel bald,” Angelo complained (which was, I assure you, more than just a feeling).
    “Wheeeee!” Tito squealed, running around in circles with his arms spread wide. “I can fly!”
    “Stop that, you fool!” Damien snapped. Then he took a deep, demented breath and hissed, “You said you wanted to be my …
assistants.”
(Even saying the word caused him to shudder.)
    “We do, Mr. Black! We do!” they all cried.
    “Then you must
listen.”
    “We will, Mr. Black! We will!”
    “Shut up, you fools, and just listen!”
    “We will, Mr. Black! We will!”
    “DO IT NOW!”
    The Bandito Brothers made big eyes and zipped their lips.
    Damien took a deep, calming breath. “Here,” he said, handing them each a pair of strange-looking goggles.
    “Do these make us blind?” Tito asked cheerfully.
    “The man said shut up!” Angelo and Pablo hissed at him.
    Damien Black gave Angelo and Pablo a small, twisted smile. “Some of us are learning, I see.”
    Then he turned to Tito. “Quite the opposite.