I'm most familiar with its use in the 19th-century theatre, where the phrase
"down in the bills" means what is in the playbill, or programme.  It is used
on a number of theatrical posters of the period, advertising surprise new
songs that are not "down in the bills."  Higginson and Dickens also use it
in this sense, reporting a spontaneous event or interruption at a
performance, something that is not "down in the bills," i.e., the playbill
or programme.

The idea of a planned program of events leads nicely to the idea of destiny.

But I did some other quick checking and from what I can find, it seems to
mean "down in the records" generally--from Daniel Defoe's _Journal of the
Plague Year_ to Thomas Wentworth Higginson's _Civil War Journal_.  It seems
to have often have an economic spin, making a payment "down in the bills"--a
payment against a record of debt or tax records.

Jim would probably mean it in the sense of the spirit or heavenly records or
a planned programme, which would indicate destiny--the great book of records
or our hour upon the stage of life--take your pick.

The NYT of the period also records several uses of the phrase that in sense,
reporting that some event was "not down in the bills," meaning that it
didn't happen, that it was not destined to happen.

Cheers,
Sharon