Business Notes THE UNEXPECTED

Leaping limos! Superrich Texan Lamar Hunt rides the subway when he visits New York City? Apparently so, because a free-lance photographer last week spied Hunt, 55, and his wife Norma as they emerged from the U.S. District Court building in lower Manhattan and headed down to the tunnels.

Since February, Lamar and his brothers Nelson Bunker and William Herbert Hunt (estimated combined fortune: $1.2 billion) have been defendants in a New York lawsuit in which Peru-owned Minpeco SA alleges that the Hunts' manipulation of the silver markets caused the 1980 crash in the price of that precious metal. The Hunts pleaded innocent, saying that silver's tumble cost them $1.1 billion.