[Avodah] Bil'am - paid or unpaid?

[Akiva Miller]

.
Was Bil'am paid for his sincere and hard-fought -- but ultimately
unsuccessful -- attempts to curse us?

If we know the answer to the above, is it cited anywhere in Choshen
Mishpat? Imagine this case: An employer hires an architect to produce plans
for a building involving a specific construction style. The architect warns
the employer that City Hall might reject that style. The employer tells the
architect to work on it anyway. As feared, the city rejects the plans,
denies the building permits, and even confiscates the plans. The architect
tells the employer, "I warned you very clearly that this might happen. Pay
me anyway!" Who wins?

It's not explicit in the pesukim, but Rashi (24:14 and 25:1) cites the
Gemara (Sanhedrin 106a) that the business with the Moavi girls was Bil'am's
idea. This is entirely separate from the above, because the above contract
was very specifically to curse the Jews (Rashi on 22:4), and the whole
chidush of this plan is that it would work totally independently of
Bil'am's cursing abilities (or lack thereof). I can easily imagine how
Bil'am approached Balak: "You wanted me to curse them, and I warned you
that it might not work. I warned you not once but several times, and look
what happened. Now listen, cursing is not going to work. Forget about it.
But I have a different idea, which has much better odds." My question here
is: (1) Did he volunteer this idea to Balak for free, out of the goodness
of his antisemitic heart? (2) Or was he a pure mercenary, who (whether he
got paid for the attempted cursing or not) saw an opportunity for another
high-income contract?

Just wondering,
Akiva Miller
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