Daily News from New York, New York • 133

cn MEM tTIT iiuis Vanishes before talk with cops Hejzr i 1 l1' ---Tar i XT 1 MISSING: Michael Suljivan and Camden Sylvia (photo left) and landlord Bob Rodriguez (photo right). upstate home, sources said. Rodriguez' family said he told them he was bound for the city to talk to cops when he left the house at 1 p.m. "He ran, he disappeared after we asked him to be interviewed," said a police source. "This is a very tangled web." The day before he vanished, Rodriguez spoke with detectives by phone and arranged for them to search the locksmith store he runs on the ground floor of the building, the sources said.

Police are not calling Rodriguez a suspect and caution that it is too soon in the investigation to determine exactly what happened to the couple. 'The only link we have at this time is that they all are connected to the building," said Deputy Inspector Joseph D'Amico. D'Amico said neither Rodriguez nor the couple had used credit cards or withdrawn cash from banks since they disappeared. "We don't have a theory right now," he said, characterizing the disappearances as "highly unusual." Sylvia's relatives said the SEE MISSINO PAGE 60 By MIKE CLAFFEY, MICHELE McPHEE mnd ALICE McQUIlUN Daily News Staff Wrners The mysterious disappearance of a lower Manhattan couple took a stunning turn yesterday when cops said the pair's landlord vanished just before a sitdown with detectives. The specter of the missing landlord has raised fears about the couple, last seen Nov.

7 at their spacious rent-controlled loft a block from the East River, police sources said. The couple left a note in the $300-a-month apartment at 78 Pearl St saying they were withholding the rent because of no heat the sources added. At first, landlord Bob Rodri-duez cooperated with cops seeking clues in the disappearance of dancer and choreographer Michael Sullivan and live-in girlfriend Camden Sylvia. Sullivan has lived in the building for two decades. But on Sunday, the day Rodriguez was supposed to meet detectives, he vanished.

Cops got a call from a lawyer saying Rodriguez' family reported him missing from their Neighbors perplexed By MIKE CLAFFEY Daily News Staff Writer Down on the corner of Pearl St and Coenties Slip, in the oldest part of Manhattan, there was disbelief that a landlord-tenant dispute could be linked to the disappearance of a popular couple. "This is weird, this is very weird," said Vincent Campan-ella, the owner of a flower shop a few doors down from the apartment of the missing pair, Michael Sullivan and Camden Sylvia. He had just learned that the building's landlord. Bob Rodriguez, had disappeared before he was supposed to talk to detectives. "This is the third person missing in a week," Campan-ella said.

Like others, Campanella described Rodriguez, who also runs a locksmith shop, as a "nice guy." "I don't think he could have had anything to do with it" he said. A tenant in Rodriguez' building, an ancient five-story brick loft at 76 Pearl St, described him as someone who didn't seem capable of committing a crime. Tenants complained Rodriguez was stingy about heat es tenants by intrigue pecially when the weather turns cold. Sylvia had even complained to her mother, Laurie Sylvia, about the problem. "All I know was my daughter was in big negotiations and pretty angry about no heat" Laurie Sylvia said.

"But that had been an ongoing thing for a couple of years," she said. "She just thought he was a jerk and was going to play games until she brought in legal help." Since she first got word of the disappearance, Sylvia, a Hyan-nis, activist for the disabled, has been keeping vigil for her daughter in the loft Her sister, Michele Whitney, from Martha's Vineyard, keeps her company. "It's hard," she said, "but in a way I'm feeling connected to my daughter here. If I can't protect her, I'll protect her stuff." Chuck DeLaney, Sullivan and Sylvia's long-time downstairs neighbor, said he hasn't given up hope his friends will return unharmed. "I'm trying to spin out scenarios where they saw something they weren't supposed to see and they're being held hostage for a while," he said.

"I'd like to think they're still alive." fN A BUILDING at 76 Pearl St is enshrouded with mystery after couple, then ANDMEW SAVUUCH DAILY NEWS landlord, disappeared..