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For the first time in months, Dillinger seemed to relax. He liked the neighborhood around Sage’s apartment. He bought a new white shirt at the Ward Mitchell store, placed a few bets with the bookie who worked around the corner in a loft above the Biograph Theatre, and had his hair trimmed at the Biograph Barber Shop. Much later, the Chicago Daily News would report he felt safe enough to visit Chicago’s detective bureau four separate times. Hamilton was applying for a new waitressing job, and her prospective employer required she obtain a medical certification. The medical examiner was in the same building as the detective bureau; four times Dillinger waited for Hamilton outside the examiner’s thirteenth-floor office, while two floors below, the Chicago police busied themselves looking for him.

As he settled into his new routines, Dillinger remained in touch with O’Leary and Van Meter. On Tuesday night, July 10, the two bank robbers took their girlfriends on a double date to the World’s Fair, wandering through the crowds at the lakeside. Two nights later Dillinger met O’Leary, and the two drove south, into the suburbs, where they found Van Meter at a barbecue stand. The two talked for a half hour in Van Meter’s car, then returned to O’Leary’s. O’Leary listened as Van Meter began complaining about Nelson. Apparently the two were having a disagreement over the disposition of some bonds.

“I had it out with Jimmy,” Van Meter said. “I told him I wasn’t going to pay him any twenty-five hundred dollars. I never did care a hell of a lot for that guy anyway.”

“He was always complaining about you, too,” Dillinger said.

“We had it pretty heavy there for a while,” Van Meter said. “I thought we were going to draw guns on each other.”

“Forget it, Van,” Dillinger said. “We’re through with Nelson, anyway. He’s outta the gang.”

“I suppose that’s good,” Van Meter said. As he left, he told Dillinger, “Don’t forget about the ‘soup.’”

As they drove back into Chicago, Dillinger told O’Leary about their next job. It was to be a train robbery. In fact, it had been proposed by Nelson’s pal Jimmy Murray, who ten years earlier had masterminded the Newton Brothers’ Roundout robbery. Murray was claiming that this train too would be carrying millions.

“It’ll be one of the biggest jobs in the world,” Dillinger enthused. “Just me and Van. We’re not cutting anybody else in on this. We’ve got it spotted, we’ve been watching it for weeks, we know all its stops. We need the ‘soup’”—nitroglycerin—“to blow the door of the mail car. We know how much money it will be carrying, and it’s plenty. We’ll have enough to last us the rest of our lives, and right after it’s over we’re lamming it out of the country.”

Van Meter’s tightfistedness forced Dillinger to take yet another meeting with O’Leary two days later, on Saturday, July 14. Their surgical assistant, Harold Cassidy, was pestering Van Meter to be paid for tending him after the South Bend robbery. Dillinger, O’Leary, and Cassidy met that afternoon in a park at the corner of Kedzie and North avenues. Dillinger slid Cassidy $500, saying it was from Van Meter. In all likelihood it wasn’t. It was just Dillinger’s way of defusing a bad situation; the last thing he needed was someone feeling unsatisfied.

Dillinger spent Sunday with Polly Hamilton. At one point, while she and a girlfriend went bicycle riding, Dillinger spent several hours watching Steve Chiolek play softball. When she returned, Hamilton found Dillinger buying bottles of beer for both teams. He seemed without a care in the world. By nightfall they were back at the North Halsted apartment. The next morning they woke to find the newspapers reporting a vicious gunfight northwest of the city. It was Nelson.

Monday, July 16 2:00 A.M.

That night Nelson held a meeting of “his” gang on a wooded side road deep in the northwest suburbs. Johnny Chase and Fatso Negri arrived first, followed by Jack Perkins. They parked their black Fords, turned off