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''Dr. Lecter's eyes are maroon and they reflect the light redly in tiny points. He is a small, lithe man. Very neat....There (is) a curious grace about him, even in restraints.'' That description, from the 1981 novel Red Dragon, introduced millions of readers to the most mesmerizing villain in contemporary literature, and its tantalizingly elusive nature-a very brief peek behind a very dark curtain-is well suited to Hannibal the Cannibal's creator. Thomas Harris is extremely polite (he recently took out an ad in The New York Times congratulating the adapters of his novel The Silence of the Lambs on their Oscar sweep) and utterly unapproachable. He does not do interviews. He does not do autograph signings, or book tours, or crime- buff conventions, or Good Morning America. What he does is write thrillers that pulse with an intuitive understanding that less is more. Harris, 51, has been spectacularly stingy with Lecter (who appears on just 11 pages of Red Dragon and 76 of The Silence of the Lambs), with his novels (three in 20 years, which probably total fewer pages than Stephen King's latest tax return), and with his own public statements (''I think really everything I know is in my books,'' he said back in 1989, in an uncharacteristic burst of loquacity). Harris, who is divorced and has a grown daughter, is a former Associated Press crime reporter who now lives in New York and Florida. According to those who know him, he is not a hermit of the Howard Hughes how-long-can-I-grow-my- fingernails variety, but rather a man who enjoys travel, fine dining (one can only muse about his taste for sweetbreads), and privacy. And, one presumes, writing: Harris is currently finishing a novel for Dell, which in 1988 reportedly signed him to a two-book, $5 million contract that looks more like a bargain with every paperback printing of Lambs (47 and counting). Even though the manuscript isn't expected to be delivered until 1993, a nasty legal battle over the movie rights is brewing in Hollywood, with Universal Pictures and producer Dino DeLaurentiis both trying to get in on the hundreds of millions of dollars that a sequel might spawn. Such is Hollywood's faith in Harris' dark artistry that Silence Oscar winners Jonathan Demme, Anthony Hopkins, and Jodie Foster have all expressed their eagerness to make a , sequel, which leads to the obvious question: Does the new book include a place at the table for Dr. Lecter? Rumor has it that the answer is yes, but not a word on the subject has come from Harris, who knows better than anyone the value of letting silence speak for itself.
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