Dear Friends,

No matter what life was to have in store for me, I always managed to laugh. I have had an irrepressible bubble of mirth in me since I was born.

I moved to New York in my early twenties to pursue my acting career. I had some interesting escapades during this time. In fact, some were pretty amazing, by today’s standards.

Here is one, called, “Yo! Face!”

“Face” was the nickname given to me by some of the gold shield detectives who worked in the narcotics division of the precinct which covered Little Italy and Chinatown. I was to work for them -a feat which surely could not be replicated today -

Hope you enjoy a recounting of this time in my life.

Love, Gopita

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Chapter 11: The Head Click

‘Yo Face!

I remember the dress because they bought it for me. The cops staring back at me while I stared at them had furnished funds for my undercover work for the Narcotics division of the New York City Police Department.

I opened the door for the first time in Little Italy to a basement below a restaurant. Sonny said we were going to have dinner, yet I was going down the stairs into a basement.

A long table set with a white tablecloth, and napkins. were the first things I saw. But around this table sat about 18 “Good Guys,” cops who were detectives for the NYC police department, big burly men with white shirts who tied napkins around their neck so as not to spill spaghetti sauce on their clothes.

Suddenly I heard a man yell from the end of the table: “’Yo Face!!” he screamed. Then a few others joined him. “’Yo Face!” “’Yo Face! I looked at these incredible men, New York City Gold Shield detectives, dedicated to working with the lowest of the low, the most despicable gangsters, criminals known for beheading women and children to keep their territories known and respected. The cartels were beginning to be alive and well in New York as well as Chicago and Latin America. And here the heroes were, celebrating me as the token woman who was hands-off, yet happy to laugh at raunchy jokes and aid in any way I could, and they knew it. It also was flattering to be acknowledged for my looks. I was called “the Face.”

I was then, as I am now, extremely vain.

Everyone knew I was Sonny Grosso’s girl. The Sonny who had gained fame and notoriety for the French Connection, one of the biggest drug heists in history. Little did these men know, Sonny was also completely hands-off with me. I couldn’t even get him to kiss me. It was unnerving, to say the least.

The help I offered had nothing to do with being virtuous or altruistic, nor having compassion for the victims of bloody drug wars. My help was motivated by my love of drama and my greedy love of clothes and fancy labels and Sambuca and Italian restaurants. But mostly I preened with the title of being “Sonny’s girl.” That and the opportunity to experience drama at this level.

I had begun to know some of these men and their stories. Difficult to maintain a stable family life, they were devoted narcs who covered themselves in the back seat of a 2 taxicab when they picked me up to take me to Little Italy. I was wearing a wire in the cab, and these men learned that I represented their best shot at catching the violent men who inhabited the drug world at that time. They knew what it meant to capture and put away one of these OGs. Like Sonny, who was virtually retired after his big one, these men were waiting for their chance to become famous. If I recognized a bad guy using a payphone, I wrote an affidavit. Then, and only then, the detectives could tap the phone.

I recently read about this law enacted in the early 70’s by the Federal Government regarding invasion of privacy. That this extended to wise guys and criminals really pissed everybody off. I loved it, because I could not have been recruited this way as a civilian if the evidence was not supported by a neutral party - and that party would be me.

My testimony, written in an affidavit à posteriori, gave evidence that a certain pay phone had been used by someone who might be a criminal, or someone who might be using the phone for illegal and at least unethical purposes. All I had to do was testify in a written affidavit that I had seen the big bad dude make a call. And often before I witnessed one of these men making a call, I drank and ate with him.

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I met Bobby first during the voir dire for my Jury Duty downtown. He had arrested me months earlier when I used a slug instead of a token in the subway booth. I had just moved to New York and had purchased a huge bag of these tokens from a friend with whom I was touring in an acting company. I did not know they were illegal. I thought they were what was used to enter the subway. My friend didn’t know I wasn’t sophisticated enough to know the difference. He had been born in the Big Apple and took his savvy around the law for granted.

A legal token was required to enter the subway through a turnstile. They had to be purchased from a booth before approaching the turnstile. These tokens cost a great deal more than the dime I spent for each token in my plastic bag.

So, I was arrested by Bobby and another cop. I was taken to the precinct at 125th St. and Broadway and given a summons to appear in court the following month. I still did not know why my plastic bag of slugs was taken. I had a great deal to learn.

I appeared in court the following month with a puffed-sleeved pink and green empire dress. I had put flowers in my hair.

I thought the judge was going to fall off his bench when he doled out my punishment: “Okay, young lady, please don’t do it again. And best of luck to you.”

I left the courtroom and joined Bobby for a drink at the cop’s hangout in Chinatown. I was to get to know this bar quite well.

This was where NYC detectives drank daily. And these men were respectful and appropriate and bought me drink after drink. No one flirted or became suggestive with me. I couldn’t believe it. This is where the moniker “Face” was born.

I was to find out that these men were not particularly virtuous, but the minute I had walked in, a titter began about the possibility of using me as bait for their detective work on capturing the Crime Boss of one of the biggest drug cartels in the country.

And this night I got ready in my apartment on 101st Street and West End Avenue, the place I shared with an Englishwoman who did research at Sloane Kettering Cancer Center. I wore my new print midi dress they bought for me at Saks. I looked phenomenal.

Sylvia came home each evening exhausted and fell into bed. Her cat curled up with her on her bed while my two babies, Tommy and Balthazar, curled up on my bed, which faced West End Avenue.

I had a bird’s eye view of traffic, and it was always easy to see the big yellow taxi lumber up West End Avenue. Unique because it was like a minibus for six passengers, a cab of its size rarely cruised the Upper West Side. So, it was easy to recognize “my” ride. I was a detective first class this evening. It was going to be a trial run to see if we could use this honeypot snare again.

Our strategy proved to be highly effective, and I was regularly assigned as the primary decoy on a biweekly basis for several months.

I loved this phase of my life in New York. I was in my early 20’s, struggling to make ends meet, yet I was given an opportunity to have fun, get free drinks and food, and to develop an appreciation for police I hold today. Perhaps it was only the NYC Narcotics division of gold shield detectives who impressed me, but I think it was more being part of a family who truly had my back, who appreciated me as a beautiful and classy woman, and who would do anything for me.

I had a family. They may have been slightly roughhewn and had darker hair than I did, but they loved me. I had an experience of what family meant and did not have to dodge the salvos and missiles coming at me from my envious siblings and strict parents.

And I was reminded, once again, of how brave I was. How willing to take risks. How I loved to laugh.

And how much I wanted to have sex with every man I met

Ah…the 70’s. What a time it was.

Love, Gopita